IIV.  OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY.  LOS  ANGELES 


SELECTIONS  FROM  WALT  WHITMAN 


COPYRIGHT,  1887,  BY  GEORGE  C.  COX. 


BY    PERMISSION. 


SELECTIONS    FROM 
THE   PROSE  AND   POETRY  OF 

WALT  WHITMAN 

Edited  with  an  Introduction  by 

OSCAR  LOVELL  TRIGGS,  PH.D. 

(  The  Univertity  of  Chicago) 


Boston 
SMALL,   MAYNARD  &  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT 

1855,  1856,  1860,  1867,  1871,  1876,  1881, 

I88Z,  1883,  1884,  1888,  1891 

BY  WALT  WHITMAN 


COPYRIGHT 

1897 

BY  RICHARD  MAURICE  BUCKE 

THOMAS  B.   HARNED  AND  HORACE  L.  TRAUBEL 

Literary  Executors  of  Walt  Whitman 


COPYRIGHT 
1898 

BY  SMALL,   MAYNARD  &  COMPANY 


010.    H.    ELU*,    PRINTER,   141     FRANKLIN    STREET,    KMTON 


PREFACE 

The  aim  of  the  editor  of  this  volume  has  been  to  make 
a  representative  selection  from  the  prose  and  poetical  writ- 
ings of  Walt  Whitman.  He  has  tried  to  select,  not  what 

from  a  conventional  point  of  view  would  be  called  "  the  best " 
of  Whitman,  but  rather  what  is  most  characteristic  in  his 
writings. 

Among  the  prose  compositions  will  be  found  the  preface  to  the 

first  edition  of  Leaves  of  Grass,  a  remarkable  essay,  which, 
in  its  original  form,  has  hitherto  been  inaccessible  to  the  great 
majority  of  Whitman  readers,  and  which  is  now  printed  ver- 
batim et  literatim  from  the  text  of  the  1855  edition.  In  the 
choice  of  poems  the  effort  has  been  made  to  preserve,  in  the 
character  and  arrangement  of  the  pieces,  the  unitary  concep- 
tions which  determined  the  architectonics  of  the  last  edition 
of  Leaves  of  Grass.  One  or  two  letters  have  been  added 

from  the  series  written  to  Peter  Doyle  and  to  Whitman's 
mother  during  war-time.  The  biographical  chapter  was  made 
up  from  many  sources ;  but  it  relies  for  its  authority  chiefly 
upon  the  writings  of  Whitman's  biographer  and  great  friend, 
Dr.  Richard  Maurice  Bucke.  A  series  of  notes  and  critical 
studies,  at  first  announced  for  this  volume,  has  been  reserved 

for  subsequent  use ;    but  a  selected  bibliography  has  been  included 

for  the  convenience  of  students. 

0.  L.  T. 

The  University  of  Chicago^ 
March,  1808. 


CONTENTS 

WALT  WHITMAN  :  INTRODUCTION xiii 

SELECTIONS  FROM  PROSE  WORKS 
SPECIMEN  DAYS 

New  Themes  entered  upon 3 

To  the  Spring  and  Brook 4 

Sundown  Perfume  —  Quail  Notes  —  The  Hermit  Thrush  4 

A  July  Afternoon  by  the  Pond 5 

The  Lesson  of  a  Tree 6 

Autumn  Side-bits 7 

The  Sky .  7 

Colors  —  A  Contrast 8 

A  Winter  Day  on  the  Sea-beach        8 

One  of  the  Human  Kinks 8 

An  Afternoon  Scene 9 

The  Common  Earth,  the  Soil 9 

Full-starr' d  Nights 9 

Mulleins  and  Mulleins 10 

A  Sun-bath  —  Nakedness 1 1 

February  Days 13 

Sundown  Lights 14 

Three  of  Us 14 

Hours  for  the  Soul 15 

A  Night  Remembrance 17 

A  January  Night 17 

An  Ulster  County  Waterfall 1 8 

Hudson  River  Sights 1 8 

Human  and  Heroic  New  York 19 

New  Senses  :  New  Joys 20 

The  Prairies  and  Great  Plains  in  Poetry 21 

A  Hint  of  Wild  Nature 21 

Only  a  New  Ferry-boat 22 

The  Great  Unrest  of  which  we  are  Part 22 

Nature  and  Democracy  —  Morality 23 

MEMORANDA  OF  THE  WAR 

The  White  House  by  Moonlight 24 

A  Night  Battle 24 

The  Most  Inspiriting  of  All  War's  Shows 27 

A  Cavalry  Camp a 8 

Soldiers  and  Talks 29 

Spiritual  Characters  among  the  Soldiers 30 

Some  Sad  Cases 31 

The  Million  Dead,  too,  summ'd  up 32 

No  Good  Portrait  of  Lincoln 34 


yiii  SELECTIONS   FROM   WALT   WHITMAN 

MEMORANDA  OF  THE  WAR  (continued) 

Death  of  Abraham  Lincoln 34 

The  Silent  General    .     .     .     .    \     .     .     . 35 

THEORY  OF  ART 

Seashore  Fancies  ..............  37 

Art  Features '-.'.. 38 

America's  Characteristic  Landscape        39 

Mississippi  Valley  Literature ....*.  39 

Gathering  the  Corn   ..............  41 

An  Egotistical  "Find"      . 41 

Elias  Hicks 42 

New  Poetry  —  California,  Canada,  Texas        ...  42 

An  Indian  Bureau  Reminiscence 44 

"  Custer'  s  Last  Rally " .  45 

Millet's  Pictures  . 46 

The  Bible  as  Poetry 48 

The  Elder  Booth .  48 

A  Thought  on  Shakspere    .                49 

Carlyle  from  American  Points  of  View        ......  51 

A  Word  about  Tennyson 59 

Edgar  Poe's  Significance     ...........  61 

The  Poetry  of  the  Future 61 

After  Trying  a  Certain  Book        62 

Literary  Tests 63 

Democratic  Vistas 63 

Last  Saved  Items 66 

PREFACE  TO   FIRST  EDITION,  LEAVES  OF  GRASS  7* 

SELECTIONS  FROM  LEAVES  OF  GRASS 

INSCRIPTIONS 

One's-self  I  Sing        ....  99 

To  a  Historian 99 

For  Him  I  Sing 99 

Me  Imperturbe 99 

I  hear  America  Singing 100 

Shut  not  your  Doors i°° 

STARTING  FROM  PAUMANOK 101 

SONG  OF  MYSELF ...  104 

CHILDREN  OF  ADAM 

I  sing  the  Body  Electric .120 

Out  of  the  Rolling  Ocean  the  Crowd 125 

We  Two,  How  Long  we  were  Fool'd i*5 

Facing  West  from  California's  Shores 1*6 

CALAMUS 

In  Paths  Untrodden **7 

For  You  O  Democracy "7 


CALAMUS  (continued] 

The  Base  of  All  Metaphysics       ...„ 128 

Recorders  Ages  Hence        128 

I  Hear  it  was  Charged  against  me 129 

I  dream' d  in  a  Dream 129 

What  Think  you  I  Take  my  Pen  in  Hand 130 

Among  the  Multitude          .     ' 130 

SONG  OF  THE  OPEN  ROAD 131 

A  SONG  OF  JOYS 137 

SONG  OF  THE  BROAD  AXE 139 

SONG  OF  THE  EXPOSITION 141 

A  SONG  FOR  OCCUPATIONS 146 

BIRDS  OF   PASSAGE 

Song  of  the  Universal 148 

To  You 150 

Myself  and  Mine       . 153 

SEA-DRIFT 

Out  of  the  Cradle  Endlessly  Rocking 154 

Tears 160 

To  the  Man-of-War  Bird 161 

On  the  Beach  at  Night 162 

Patroling  Barnegat 163 

BY  THE  ROADSIDE 

When  I  heard  the  Learn' d  Astronomer 163 

I  Sit  and  Look  Out 164 

A  Farm  Picture 164 

The  Runner 164 

Hast  never  come  to  thee  an  Hour 165 

DRUM-TAPS 

Song  of  the  Banner  at  Daybreak 165 

Rise  O  Days  from  your  Fathomless  Deeps 166 

Cavalry  crossing  a  Ford 169 

Bivouac  on  a  Mountain  Side 169 

An  Army  Corps  on  the  March 169 

By  the  Bivouac's  Fitful  Flame 170 

Vigil  Strange  I  kept  on  the  Field  One  Night 170 

A  Sight  in  Camp  in  the  Daybreak  Gray  and  Dim     .     .     .  172 

Dirge  for  Two  Veterans 172 

Over  the  Carnage  rose  Prophetic  a  Voice 173 

Ethiopia  saluting  the  Colors 174 

Look  down  Fair  Moon 175 

Reconciliation 175 

MEMORIES  OF  PRESIDENT  LINCOLN 

When  Lilacs  last  in  the  Dooryard  Bloom' d      .     .     ...  176 

O  Captain  !  My  Captain 184 

AUTUMN  RIVULETS 

Old  Ireland .  185 


SELECriONS  FROM   WALT  WHITMAN 

AUTUMN  RIVULETS  \continued] 

The  City  Dead-house     ............  186 

This  Compost 187 

The  Singer  in  the  Prison 189 

Warble  for  Lilac-time 191 

To  Him  that  was  Crucified i9z 

Miracles 193 

Sparkles  from  the  Wheel 1 94 

The  Prairie  States 194 

PASSAGE  TO  INDIA 195 

PRAYER  OF  COLUMBUS 204 

To  THINK  OF  TIME 207 

WHISPERS  OF  HEAVENLY  DEATH 

Whispers  of  Heavenly  Death  . 203 

Chanting  the  Square  Deific 203 

Night  on  the  Prairies 205 

The  Last  Invocation 206 

THOU  MOTHER  WITH  THY  EQUAL  BROOD 207 

FROM  NOON  TO  STARRY  NIGHT 

Faces 208 

The  Mystic  Trumpeter 220 

To  a  Locomotive  in  Winter 224 

Thick-sprinkled  Bunting 225 

What  Best  I  see  in  thee 225 

A  Clear  Midnight 226 

SONGS  OF  PARTING 

Years  of  the  Modern 226 

Camps  of  Green 228 

As  They  Draw  to  a  Close 229 

Joy,  Shipmate,  Joy! 229 

The  Untold  Want 229 

Portals 230 

These  Carols 230 

So  Long! 230 

SANDS  AT  SEVENTY 

My  Canary  Bird 232 

With  Husky-haughty  Lips,  O  Sea! 232 

Of  that  Blithe  Throat  of  thine 233 

The  United  States  to  Old  World  Critics 233 

The  Voice  of  the  Rain 233 

Soon  shall  the  Winter's  Foil  be  here 234 

A  Prairie  Sunset 234 

Twilight 235 

The  Dismantled  Ship 235 

After  the  Supper  and  Talk 235 

GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY 

To  the  Sun-set  Breeze 236 


CONTENTS  xi 

GOOD-BYE  MY  FANCY  (continued) 

When  the  Full-grown  Poet  came 237 

A  Persian  Lesson 237 

Grand  is  the  Seen      .     .     .     .     .     ...     .     .  V    .     .  238 

Good-Bye  My  Fancy! 238 

OLD  AGE  ECHOES 

Death's  Valley 239 

SELECTIONS  FROM  LETTERS 

THE  WOUND  DRESSER 243 

CALAMUS:  LETTERS  TO  PETER  DOYLE 246 

A  SELECTED  BIBLIOGRAPHY »s, 


WALT    WHITMAN 

i 

Walter  Walter  Whitman*  (1819-1892)  was  born  May  31, 
1819,  in  West  Hills,  near  Huntington,  Long  Island.  While 
Walter  was  yet  a  child,  the  parents  moved  from  West  Hills  to 
Brooklyn.  The  boy  was  educated  at  the  Brooklyn  Public  Schools, 
tended  in  a  lawyer's  and  a  doctor's  office,  and  was  apprenticed  at 
the  printer's  trade  on  The  Brooklyn  Star  and  The  Long  Island 
Patriot.  He  began  at  this  time  to  write  "sentimental  bits" 
for  the  papers.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  taught  school  in 
Long  Island,  "boarding  round  the  district."  For  a  year  he  pub- 
lished The  Long  Islander  newspaper  at  Huntington.  In  1 840 
he  settled  in  New  York  City  as  printer  and  journalist,  writing 
some  essays  and  tales  for  The  Democratic  Review.  In  1 846 
he  became  the  editor  of  the  daily  paper,  The  Brooklyn  Eagle. 
In  1848  he  journeyed  to  New  Orleans,  and  became  a  member 
of  the  editorial  staff  of  The  Crescent.  In  1850  he  was  again 
in  Brooklyn  as  the  editor  of  The  Freeman.  From  1851  to 
1854  he  was  engaged  in  the  building  trade  in  Brooklyn.  During 
this  period  he  was  also  writing,  lecturing,  and  giving  political 
talks.  The  first  edition  of  Leaves  of  Grass  appeared  in  1855. 
The  same  year  his  father  died.  The  second  edition  of  the  poems 
came  out  in  1856,  and  the  third  in  1860.  In  1862  he  went  to 
the  field  of  war,  and  engaged  as  a  volunteer  nurse  in  the  hospital 
service.  At  the  close  of  the  war  in  1865  he  became  a  clerk  in 
the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  from  which  he  was  soon 
dismissed  on  the  ground  of  being  the  author  of  "an  indecent 
book,"  but  was  at  once  given  a  place  in  the  office  of  the  Attorney- 
General,  which  he  kept  till  his  illness  in  1873.  In  1865  (1866) 
he  published  Drum-Taps  and  other  poems,  including  the  Lincoln 
Hymn.  The  fourth  edition  of  Leaves  of  Grass  appeared  in  1867. 
In  1871  he  published  Democratic  Vistas  and  Passage  to  India. 
This  year  he  wrote  After  All  not  to  Create  Only,  and  delivered  it 
at  the  American  Institute,  New  York.  The  fifth  edition  of  Leaves 
of  Grass  was  also  issued  in  1871.  In  1872  he  delivered  As  a 
Strong  Bird  on  Pinions  Free  at  the  Commencement  of  Dartmouth 

*  He  was  called  Walt  to  distinguish  him  from  his  father,  Walter.  Walter  was 
signed  to  his  first  publications  (see  The  Death  of  Wind-foot,  The  American 
Re-view,  June,  1845),  and  in  this  name  the  copyright  of  Leaves  of  Grass  in  1855 
was  taken  out.  In  all  later  editions  the  name  appears  as  Walt, 


xiv  SELECTIONS  FROM   WALT   WHITMAN 

College,  and  travelled  in  the  New  England  States.  In  1873  he 
was  prostrated  by  paralysis,  and  moved  to  Camden,  New  Jersey, 
where  he  resided,  with  spells  of  illness  and  recovery,  until  his  death. 
The  same  year  he  suffered  his  greatest  loss  in  the  death  of  his 
mother.  In  1874  he  delivered  The  Song  of  the  Universal  at  the 
Commencement  of  Tufts  College.  In  1875  Memoranda  of  the 
War  was  published.  The  sixth  edition  of  Leaves  of  Grass  and 
Two  Rivulets  (a  supplementary  volume)  came  out  in  1876,  the 
centennial  year.  In  1879  he  travelled  through  the  West  and 
South,  and  the  next  year  up  through  Canada.  The  seventh  edi- 
tion of  the  poems  was  issued  in  1881;  but  the  publication  was 
abandoned  by  the  publisher,  James  R.  Osgood,  of  Boston,  under 
threat  of  prosecution  for  issuing  immoral  literature.  The  eighth 
edition  with  final  corrections  was  immediately  set  forth  in  Philadel- 
phia in  1882,  and  in  a  separate  volume  the  prose  works  entitled 
Specimen  Days  and  Collect.  November  Boughs,  poems  and  prose, 
appeared  in  1888.  The  ninth  edition  of  the  Leaves  and  the  com- 
plete prose  writings  were  published  in  one  volume  in  1888—89. 
In  1889  a  special  autograph  edition  of  the  poems  was  made  up. 
Good  Bye  my  Fancy  came  out  in  1891.  The  tenth  edition  of 
Leaves  of  Grass  and  the  volume  of  prose  were  published  in  1892. 
That  year,  1892,  on  March  26,  the  poet  died  at  Camden,  and 
was  buried  in  Harleigh  Cemetery. 

II 

With  reference  to  Whitman's  life-work,  the  writing  of  Leaves  of 
Grass,  his  career  readily  falls  into  four  periods,  each  of  which  was 
distinguished  by  special  experiences.  The  first  and  preparatory 
period  extended  from  1819  to  1855.  The  second  or  creative 
period  included  the  years  from  1855  to  1862,  during  which  three 
editions  of  the  poems  appeared  in  rapid  succession.  The  third  ex- 
tends from  1862  to  1873,  which  includes  the  experiences  of  the 
war  and  of  his  life  at  Washington,  at  which  time  his  character 
culminated  in  its  development  of  a  universal  sympathy.  In  1873 
he  fell  permanently  ill.  His  writings  passed  continually  under 
revision  till  the  completion  of  the  final  edition  the  year  of  his 
death,  in  I  892. 

Ill 

The  record  of  outer  events  does  not  constitute  the  biography  of 
such  a  man  as  Whitman.  He  was  a  seer.  His  life  was  wrought 
in  harmony  with  the  higher  spiritual  laws  of  his  being.  What  he 
contributed  to  the  world  was  not  a  series  of  incidents,  but  a  new 


INTRODUCriON  xv 

spiritual  experience.  By  virtue  of  that  experience  his  greatness  is 
recognized  and  his  power  acknowledged.  He  is  to-day  the  minis- 
ter of  a  religion  whose  service  is  admitted  by  palpable  live  disciples. 
Not  to  perceive  the  sacer  vates  aspect  of  his  life  is  to  miss  the  rea- 
son for  his  extraordinary  influence  and  to  remain  ignorant  of  the 
essential  fact  of  his  biography. 

IV 

Leaves  of  Grass  is  Whitman's  personal  record.  It  is  a  subtle 
and  profound  autobiography.  He  himself  composes  the  epic  of  the 
senses,  the  passions,  the  ideas,  the  spiritual  aspirations  the  book  dis- 
plays. Whether  speaking  of  men,  animals,  or  things,  he  has  ref- 
erence to  himself,  through  whom  the  whole  creation  moves  as  in 
an  endless  procession.  The  universe  that  he  describes  is  the  one 
he  has  personalized  in  his  own  consciousness.  This  quality  of  the 
book  is  emphasized  by  the  presence  in  every  edition  of  something 
marked,  as  it  were,  "personal," — an  autograph,  a  portrait,  a 
special  note  or  poem.  The  portrait  facing  the  Song  of  Myself  is, 
as  Whitman  said  to  his  publisher,  involved  as  part  of  the  poem,  an 
inherent  part  of  his  message  to  the  world. 

This  characterization  needs,  however,  some  modification.  The 
poem  is  not  in  a  narrow  sense  autobiographic.  While  its  first  im- 
pression is  that  of  a  personality,  the  succeeding  and  dominant  feel- 
ing is  that  of  impersonality.  His  "I"  has  an  infinite  range  of 
meaning.  He  stands  as  the  type,  the  microcosmos,  a  man  em- 
bracing all  experiences  natural  to  men  and  women.  His  joys  and 
sorrows,  virtues  and  vices,  are  as  often  vicarious  as  personal.  "  If 
you  become  degraded,  criminal,  ill,  then  I  become  so  for  your 
sake."  His  experience  furnishes  a  most  remarkable  proof  of  the 
possibility  of  identifying  the  individual  with  the  universal  man,  and 
raises  the  question  whether  the  true  self  is  not  in  very  fact  the 
Spirit  of  the  Universe.  His  own  soul  in  its  growth  took  on  im- 
personality. He  learned  to  speak  of  himself  in  an  objective  man- 
ner, the  words  "Walt  Whitman  "  standing  to  him  as  a  sign  of  the 
universal  man.  "What  am  I,"  he  once  said,  "but  an  idea, 
spirit  —  a  new  language  for  civilization  ?  "  In  the  last  editions  of 
his  poems,  passages  referring  to  himself — as  the  lines  in  the 
Song  of  the  Broad-axe  descriptive  of  his  own  shape  —  were 
omitted.  During  later  years  the  perception  grew  that  his  work  was 
especially  representative.  In  the  note  at  the  end  of  the  1889  edi- 
tion of  the  Complete  Works  he  queries:  "  The  fancy  rises  whether 
the  33  years  of  life  from  1855  to  1888,  with  their  aggregate  of 


xvi  SELECTIONS  FROM   WALT   WHITMAN 

our  New  World  doings  and  people,  created  and  formulated  the 
works  —  coming  actually  from  the  direct  urge  and  developments  of 
those  years,  and  not  from  any  individual  epic  or  lyrical  attempts 
whatever,  or  from  my  pen  or  voice,  or  anybody's  special  voice, 
therefore  considered  as  an  autochthonic  record  and  experience  of 
the  soul  and  evolution  of  America  and  of  the  world. "  It  is  better 
perhaps  to  conceive  of  Whitman  not  so  much  as  a  separate  person 
as  the  representative  of  a  cosmic  instinct  and  tendency. 

V 

Nevertheless,  the  incarnated  form  and  soul  have  to  be  consid- 
ered, with  their  particular  growths  and  experiences  from  the  time 
of  birth  to  death. 

Walter  was  the  second  of  a  family  of  nine  children, —  seven  boys 
and  two  girls.  The  Whitmans  are  English  stock,  the  line  in  New 
England  being  directly  traceable  to  the  Rev.  Zechariah  Whitman 
(born  1595),  who  came  from  England  in  1635,  and  settled  at 
Milford,  Connecticut.  The  Whitmans  were  men  of  considerable 
prominence  in  the  colonial  days.  The  Rev.  Zechariah  Whitman 
of  Hull,  Massachusetts,  the  nephew  of  the  Milford  Whitman,  was 
a  Harvard  graduate  (1668),  and  is  described  in  the  Dorchester 
records  as  "  Vir  piui,  bumilis,  ortbodoxus,  utilisimus."  Joseph 
Whitman,  of  the  Milford  family,  moved  to  Huntington,  Long 
Island,  about  1660,  purchasing  the  farm  at  West  Hills,  which  was 
occupied  in  turn  by  Whitman's  great-grandfather,  grandfather, 
and  father.  The  family  burying-ground,  on  the  home  farm,  con- 
tains perhaps  fifty  stones,  uninscribed  as  was  the  Quaker  custom. 
The  Whitman  line  is  described  as  a  long-lived  race,  large  of 
stature,  slow  of  movement,  sturdy  and  friendly  of  nature.  They 
appear  to  have  been  of  democratic  and  heretical  tendencies.  In 
the  Revolution  several  of  the  family  were  soldiers  and  officers 
of  rank  under  Washington.  Many  members  of  the  family  have 
maintained  the  New  England  academic  traditions,  twelve  of  the 
name  having  graduated  from  Harvard,  five  at  Yale,  and  nine  at 
other  Eastern  colleges.  There  have  been  ministers  and  teachers 
beyond  number.  The  great-grandmother  on  the  paternal  side  is 
known  to  have  been  a  large,  swarthy  woman,  rather  rude  in 
disposition.  The  immediate  grandmother,  Hannah  Brush,  was 
a  woman  of  superior  type.  With  memories  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, she  instilled  into  her  grandson  the  spirit  of  independence. 
Walter  Whitman,  the  poet's  father  (born  1789,  died  1855),  was 
a  farmer  and  carpenter.  He  is  pictured  as  a  large,  quiet,  serious 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

man,  very  kind  to  children  and  animals,  good-natured,  a  good 
citizen,  neighbor,  and  parent.  His  carpentry  was  solid  and  con- 
scientious. His  religious  affinities  were  with  the  Quakers.  The 
strong  points  of  his  character  were  resolution,  love  of  freedom  and 
independence. 

The  Van  Velsors,  the  mother's  family,  were  farmers  and  sailors 
of  Holland-Dutch  descent,  having  a  homestead  on  Long  Island 
at  Cold  Spring  Harbor,  some  three  miles  distant  from  West 
Hills.  The  Van  Velsors  were  generally  warm-hearted,  sym- 
pathetic, spiritual  people.  Major  Cornelius  was  a  jovial,  free- 
hearted Americanized  Netherlander,  with  his  family  passion  for 
fine  horses.  The  maternal  grandmother  was  a  woman  of  excep- 
tional spiritual  character.  She  was  a  member  of  the  Society  of 
Friends,  and  was  deeply  intuitive  and  of  a  kindly  charitable  dispo- 
sition. Whitman  draws  her  portrait  in  his  poem  on  Faces :  — 

Behold  a  woman  ! 

She  looks  out  from  her  quaker  cap,  her  face  is  clearer  and  more 

beautiful  than  the  sky. 

She  sits  in  an  armchair  under  the  shaded  porch  of  the  farmhouse, 
The  sun  just  shines  on  her  old  white  head. 
Her  ample  gown  is  of  cream-hued  linen, 
Her   grandsons   raised   the  flax,   and  her  grand-daughters   spun 

it  with  the  distaff  and  the  wheel. 
The  melodious  character  of  the  earth, 
The  finish  beyond  which  philosophy  cannot  go  and  does  not 

wish  to  go, 
The  justified  mother  of  men.  ; 

Her  name,  Naomi  Williams,  suggests  a  Welsh  or  Celtic  an- 
cestry. The  poet's  mother,  Louise,  daughter  of  Cornelius  Van 
Velsor,  exhibits  the  best  traits  of  the  Holland  woman,  whose  sign 
is  a  noble  and  perfect  maternity.  She  was  distinguished  by  sweet- 
ness of  temper,  sympathy,  a  genial  optimism,  and  genuine  spiritu- 
ality of  character.  She  was  a  hard  worker,  enjoyed  splendid 
health,  living  to  the  age  of  eighty.  Between  her  and  Walt  existed 
a  strong  and  exceptional  attachment.  The  poet  always  spoke  of 
her  as  '*  dear,  dear  mother  ";  and  of  her  and  his  sister  Martha  he 
said  at  the  time  of  their  death,  in  1873,  '« They  were  the  two 
best  and  sweetest  women  I  have  ever  seen  or  known,  or  ever  ex- 
pect to  see."  It  was  undoubtedly  from  the  mother  that  Whitman 
derived  his  essential  nature.  His  due  to  her  is  acknowledged  in 
his  poem,  As  at  thy  Portals  also  Death :  — 


xviii  SELECTIONS   FROM    WALT   WHITMAN 

As  at  thy  portals  also  death, 

Entering  thy  sovereign,  dim,  illimitable  grounds, 

To  memories  of  my  mother,  to  the  divine  blending,  maternity, 

To  her,  buried  and  gone,  yet  buried  not,  gone  not  from  me, 

(I  see  again  the  calm  benignant  face  fresh  and  beautiful  still, 

I  sit  by  the  form  in  the  coffin, 

I  kiss  and  kiss  convulsively  again  the  sweet  old  lips,  the  cheeks, 

the  closed  eyes  in  the  coffin;) 
To  her,   the  ideal  woman,  practical,   spiritual,  of  all  of  earth, 

life,  love,  to  me  the  best, 

I  grave  a  monumental  line,  before  I  go,  amid  these  songs, 
And  set  a  tombstone  here. 

"As  to  loving  and  disinterested  parents,"  Whitman  has  said,  "no 
boy  or  man  ever  had  more  cause  to  bless  and  thank  them  than  I." 

Of  this  inheritance  of  blood  the  Dutch  ancestry  is  the  most 
noticeable  in  Whitman's  composition.  He  represents  the  Dutch- 
American  type.  He  had  the  splendid  health  of  the  Netherland- 
ers,  their  blond  face,  tinged  with  rose,  gentle  eyes,  and  flaxen 
hair,  which  turned  to  white  at  thirty.  As  evidences  of  Dutch 
origin,  William  Sloane  Kennedy  points  to  Whitman's  endurance, 
practicality,  sanity,  thrift,  excessive  neatness  and  purity  of  person, 
and  the  preponderance  of  the  simple  and  serious  over  the  humorous 
and  refined  in  his  phrenology.  The  forms  of  his  art  are  Dutch, — 
its  realism,  its  glorification  of  the  commonplace,  its  transcenden- 
talism and  mysticism.  His  independence  is  Dutch.  In  the  vistas 
of  his  democratic  ideas  is  discernible  the  struggle  of  the  Nether- 
lands for  liberty,  free  thought,  and  free  institutions.  There  is 
evidence  of  the  mingling  somewhere  of  French  Protestant  blood 
with  the  Dutch  stock, —  a  common  occurrence  in  early  New  York. 
The  French  terms  in  his  writings  appear  to  be  home  words 
rather  than  learned  from  books. 

The  Quaker  traditions  were  strongly  imposed  upon  his  char- 
acter. He  had  Quaker  habits,  such  as  wearing  the  hat  and  dress- 
ing in  plain  gray  clothes.  He  had  a  dislike  of  ostentation  or 
sensationalism.  He  wrote  to  Osgood,  his  publisher,  to  make  his 
book  "plain  and  simple  even  to  Quakerism  —  no  sensationalism 
about  it  —  no  luxury  —  a  book  for  honest  wear  and  use. ' ' 
Quaker  traits  appear  in  his  silence,  plainness,  placidity,  sincerity, 
self-respect,  dislike  of  debate,  strife,  and  war.  They  are  evi- 
denced in  his  friendliness,  benevolence,  his  deep  religiousness,  and 
in  his  trust  in  the  "  Inner  Light."  The  spirit  both  of  the  grand- 


mother  and  mother  descended  upon  him,  directing  his  mind  from 
childhood  into  spiritual  channels.  In  the  family  and  in  the  Long 
Island  neighborhood  the  influence  of  Elias  Hicks  was  strong  and 
pervasive.  The  biography  of  Hicks  that  Whitman  wrote  in  later 
life  —  loving  and  reverencing  the  great  Quaker  —  is,  as  to  spiritual 
matters,  a  transcript  of  the  poet's  own  experiences.  No  one  ever 
put  greater  trust  in  the  authority  of  his  own  soul  and  interior 
revelation  than  he  who  denned  the  doctrine  of  the  Quakers  in 
these  terms  :  "  The  great  matter  is  to  reveal  and  outpour  the  God- 
like suggestions  pressing  for  birth  in  the  soul."  In  the  least 
thing  or  in  the  greatest  Whitman  waited  for  the  promptings  of 
the  spirit,  what  he  termed  his  "calls"  or  "summons."  As 
a  Quaker,  he  could  not  take  part  in  internecine  strife;  but  he  felt 
"called"  to  go  to  the  field  to  do  what  he  could  for  the  suf- 
fering sick  and  wounded  of  whatever  army.  To  his  friends 
assembled  in  1889  to  do  him  honor  he  said:  "Following  the 
impulse  of  the  spirit  (for  I  am  at  least  half  of  Quaker  stock)  I 
have  obeyed  the  command  to  come  and  look  at  you  for  a  min- 
ute and  show  myself  face  to  face  ;  which  is  probably  the  best 
I  can  do.  But  I  have  felt  no  command  to  make  a  speech  ;  and 
shall  not  therefore  attempt  any." 

VI 

Up  to  the  age  of  twenty  Whitman's  environment  was  largely 
constituted  by  Long  Island.  Though  his  parents  resided  during 
most  of  this  period  at  Brooklyn,  yet  the  boy  paid  frequent  visits 
to  his  relations  at  West  Hills,  taught  school  at  sixteen  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  island,  "boarding  round,"  and  for  a  year  or 
two  edited  at  Huntington  a  newspaper,  whose  copies  he  distrib- 
uted himself,  walking  or  riding  over  the  island. 

Long  Island  was  settled  chiefly  by  the  Dutch  and  English 
early  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Their  descendants,  with  some 
native  Indians  and  a  few  negro  slaves,  constituted  the  popula- 
tion in  Whitman's  boyhood.  Farming,  ship-building,  and  fishing 
were  the  leading  occupations.  The  island  is  about  1 20  miles 
long  and  12  to  20  miles  wide,  in  shape  like  a  fish.  Through  the 
centre  runs  an  irregular  range  of  low  hills,  affording  every  variety 
of  scenery.  The  coast  line  is  indented  with  harbors.  These  and 
the  salt  marshes  at  the  upper  reaches  of  the  inlets  give  character- 
istic touches  to  an  island  home.  The  hills  are  fully  wooded  with 
trees  of  oak,  hickory,  pine,  chestnut,  and  locust.  The  farm-houses 
are  generally  low  frame  structures,  covered  roof  and  sides  with 


xx  SELECTIONS  FROM   WALT   WHITMAN 

shingles  that  have  weathered  to  a  soft  gray.  About  the  hamlets 
are  abundant  orchards.  Lilacs  grow  in  every  dooryard.  The 
island  is  noted  for  its  streams,  its  diminutive  lakes,  and  its  springs  of 
cold  water.  The  hermit-thrush  is  vocal  in  its  woods.  The  gen- 
eral features  of  the  landscape  are  irregularity,  undulation,  vista. 
These  appear  to  be  the  very  forms  in  which  Whitman's  thought  is 
cast. 

At  West  Hills  he  had  as  concrete  background  the  gently  rolling 
country-side  and  views  of  the  sea.  The  homestead  was  so  named 
because  of  its  situation  in  the  midst  of  the  group  of  hills  which 
form  the  western  portion  of  the  island.  Near  the  home  rose 
Jaynes  Hill,  the  highest  point  of  land  in  Long  Island,  in  height 
some  350  feet,  from  the  summit  of  which  is  an  extensive  and  pict- 
uresque prospect  of  the  undulating  hills  and  plains,  the  gleaming 
sound,  and  the  white  breakers  of  the  sea.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill  the 
Whitman  homestead  was  situated.  A  view  of  the  original  home  and 
the  domestic  interior  is  furnished  by  John  Burroughs  in  one  of  his 
early  notes  :  "  The  Whitmans  lived  in  a  long  story-and-a-half  farm- 
house, hugely  timbered.  A  great  smoke-canopied  kitchen,  with 
vast  hearth  and  chimney,  formed  one  end  of  the  house.  The 
existence  of  slavery  in  New  York  at  that  time,  and  the  possession 
by  the  family  of  some  twelve  or  fifteen  slaves,  house  and  field  ser- 
vants, gave  things  quite  a  patriarchal  look.  The  very  young 
darkies  could  be  seen,  a  swarm  of  them,  toward  sundown,  in  the 
kitchen,  squatted  in  a  circle  on  the  floor,  eating  their  supper  of 
Indian  pudding  and  milk.  In  the  house,  and  in  food  and  furni- 
ture, all  was  rude,  but  substantial.  No  carpets  nor  stoves  were 
known,  and  no  coffee,  and  tea  and  sugar  only  for  the  women. 
Rousing  wood  fires  gave  both  warmth  and  light  on  winter  nights. 
Pork,  poultry,  beef,  and  all  the  ordinary  vegetables  and  grains  were 
plentiful.  Cider  was  the  men's  common  drink,  and  used  at 
meals.  The  clothes  were  mainly  homespun.  Journeys  were 
made  by  both  men  and  women  on  horseback.  Books  were  scarce. 
The  annual  copy  of  the  Almanac  was  a  treat,  and  was  pored 
over  through  the  long  winter  evenings."  Parts  of  this  primitive 
cabin  are  still  standing.  Near  by  is  a  large  oak-tree  and  a  grove  of 
black  walnuts.  Beyond  the  house  a  stream  flows  down  from  the 
hills  eastward  across  the  plains.  About  a  mile  to  the  east  Whit- 
man's parents  resided.  Of  this  scene  at  West  Hills,  Daniel  G. 
Brinton  has  recorded  his  impression  :  «'  Here  on  this  spot,  I  believe 
I  caught  what  I  had  hoped  I  might  —  the  inspiration  of  the  scene, 
which,  unconsciously  to  himself,  had  moulded  Walt's  mind.  I 


INTRODUCriON  xxi 

say  unconsciously,  for  once  I  asked  him  whether  the  landscapes  of 
his  boyhood  still  haunted  his  dreams  and  formed  the  settings  and 
frames  of  his  nightly  visions,  as  mine  do  with  me  ;  but  he  returned 
one  of  those  steady  glances  and  vague  replies  with  which  he  was 
wont  to  turn  aside  the  curious,  leaving  me  in  doubt  whether  such 
was  not  the  case,  or  whether  I  had  approached  with  shodden  feet 
some  holy  ground  in  the  fane  of  his  mind.  Whatever  the  answer 
might  have  been,  now  I  know  that  the  peasant  sturdiness  of  that 
landscape,  its  downright  lines,  its  large  sweeps,  its  lack  of  set 
forms,  created  the  mould  into  which  his  later  thought  was  cast. 
Neither  years  of  wider  life  nor  witnessing  grander  beauties  altered 
him  from  what  the  West  Hills  had  made  him." 

Cold  Spring  village,  the  home  of  the  Van  Velsors,  is  wilder  and 
more  romantic  in  its  view  of  sea  and  shore.  It  is  noted  for  its 
shipping  and  its  sailors.  This  locality  and  the  maternal  homestead 
may  be  described  in  Whitman's  own  words,  written  while  on  a 
visit  to  the  scene  of  his  youth  :  — 

"  I  write  this  paragraph  on  the  burial  hill  of  the  Van  Velsors  near 
Cold  Spring,  the  most  significant  depository  of  the  dead  that  could 
be  imagined,  without  the  slightest  help  from  art,  soil  sterile,  a 
mostly  bare  plateau-flat  of  an  acre,  the  top  of  a  hill,  brush  and 
well-grown  trees  and  dense  woods  bordering  all  around,  very 
primitive,  secluded,  no  visitors,  no  road  (you  cannot  drive  here, 
you  have  to  bring  the  dead  on  foot,  and  follow  on  foot). 
Two  or  three-score  graves  quite  plain  ;  as  many  more  almost 
rubbed  out.  My  grandfather  Cornelius  and  my  grandmother 
Amy  (Naomi)  and  numerous  relatives  nearer  or  remoter,  on 
my  mother's  side,  lie  buried  here.  The  scene  as  I  stood  or  sat, 
the  delicate  and  wild  odor  of  the  woods,  a  slightly  drizzling  rain, 
the  emotional  atmosphere  of  the  place,  and  the  inferred  remi- 
niscences, were  such  as  I  never  realized  before. 

"  I  went  down  from  this  ancient  grave-place  eighty  or  ninety  rods 
to  the  site  of  the  Van  Velsor  homestead,  where  my  mother 
was  born  (1795),  and  where  every  spot  had  been  familiar  to 
me  as  a  child  and  youth  (1825— '40).  Then  stood  there  a 
long  rambling  dark-gray,  shingle-sided  house,  with  sheds,  pens, 
a  great  barn  and  much  open  road-space.  Now  of  all  these 
not  a  vestige  left ;  all  had  been  pulled  down,  erased,  and  the 
plough  and  harrow  passed  over  foundations,  road-spaces  and  every- 
thing for  many  summers  ;  fenced  in  at  present,  and  grain  and 
clover  growing  like  any  other  fine  fields.  Only  a  big  hole  from  an 
ancient  cellar,  with  some  little  heaps  of  broken  stone,  green  with 


xxii  SELECTIONS  FROM   WALT   WHITMAN 

grass  and  weeds,  identified  the  place.  Even  the  great  old  brook 
and  spring  seemed  to  have  mostly  dwindled  away. 

«'  In  some  particulars  this  whole  scene,  with  what  it  aroused, 
memories  of  my  young  days  there  half  a  century  ago,  the  vast  old 
kitchen  and  ample  fireplace  and  the  sitting-room  adjoining,  the 
plain  furniture,  the  meals,  the  house  full  of  merry  people,  my 
grandmother  Amy's  sweet  old  face  in  its  Quaker  cap,  my  grand- 
father '  the  Major, '  jovial,  red,  stout,  with  sonorous  voice  and 
characteristic  physiognomy,  made  perhaps  the  most  pronounced 
half-day's  experience  of  my  whole  jaunt. " 

Of  the  general  region  Whitman  has  said:  "How  well  I  re- 
member the  region — the  flat  plains  with  their  prairie  like  vistas 
and  grassy  patches  in  every  direction,  and  the  '  kill-calf, '  and 
herds  of  cattle  and  sheep.  Then  the  South  shores  and  the  salt 
meadows  and  the  sedgy  smell,  and  numberless  little  bayous  and 
hummock-islands  in  the  waters,  the  habitat  of  every  sort  of  fish 
and  aquatic  fowl  of  North  America.  And  the  bay  men  — 
a  strong,  wild,  peculiar  race  —  now  extinct,  or  rather  wholly 
changed.  And  the  beach  outside  the  sandy  bars,  with  their  old 
historic  wrecks  and  storms  —  the  weird  white-gray  beach  —  not 
without  its  tales  of  pathos  —  tales  too  of  grandest  heroes  and 
heroisms." 

In  the  midst  of  a  sturdy  agricultural  community,  and  in  associa- 
tion with  farmers,  pilots,  and  fishermen,  Whitman  spent  thus  much 
of  his  youth.  He  enjoyed  the  freedom  of  life  in  the  open  air. 
Neighbors  remember  him  as  a  free-hearted  and  rollicking  boy, 
broad-shouldered,  nonchalant,  a  leader  among  his  fellows.  He 
dressed  and  looked  like  a  "water  dog."  One  sea-captain  said  of 
the  young  Whitman  at  Huntington,  "I  can  smell  salt  water  ten 
miles  away  on  just  seeing  him."  His  boyhood  memories  were 
of  swimming,  boating,  clam-digging,  gathering  sea-gulls'  eggs,  of 
light-house  and  pilot  boat,  of  the  farm  life,  and  of  the  herdsmen 
and  Indians  of  the  interior. 

With  the  associations  of  the  homestead  his  poems  are  saturated. 
He  acknowledges  his  origin  in  the  poem  beginning,  "  Starting 
from  fish-shape  Paumanok  where  I  was  born."  In  There  was  a 
Child  Went  Forth  the  memories  are  all  of  his  own  boyhood,  the 
associations  either  of  Long  Island  or  Brooklyn.  As  he  was  gifted 
with  large  receptivity,  the  capacity  to  affiliate  with  men  and  objects 
in  multitudes,  the  extent  of  his  absorption  of  his  early  environment 
can  never  be  fully  measured.  His  love  of  the  sea,  the  salt  and 
sedge  of  his  works,  and  his  sense  of  the  mystic  meaning  of  the 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

wave  pushing  upon  the  shore,  moaning,  and  casting  up  drift- 
wood, were  gained  at  this  time.  The  identification  of  himself 
with  animals  and  all  evolutionary  growths  was  no  doubt  a  life- 
long experience.  To  the  sun  he  said,  "Always  I  have  loved 
thee,  even  as  basking  babe,  then  happy  boy  alone  by  some  wood 
edge,  thy  touching-distant  beams  enough,  or  man  matured  or 
young  or  old."  Other  details  of  early  perception  are  revealed  in 
There  was  a  Child  Went  Forth :  — 

The  early  lilacs  became  part  of  this  child, 

The  grass  and  white  and  red  morning-glories,  and  white  and  red 

clover,  and  the  song  of  the  phoebe-bird, 
And  the  Third-month  lambs  and  the  sow's  pink-faint  litter,  and 

the  mare's  foal  and  the  cow's  calf, 
And  the  noisy  brood  of  the  barnyard  or  by  the  mire  of  the  pond 

side, 
And  the  fish  suspending  themselves  so  curiously  below  there,  and 

the  beautiful  curious  liquid, 
And  the  water  plants  with  their  graceful  flat  heads,  all  became 

part  of  him. 

The  hurrying  tumbling  waves,  quick-broken  crests,  slapping, 
The  strata  of  color 'd  clouds,  the  long  bar  of  maroon-tint  away 

solitary  by  itself,  the  spread  of  purity  it  lies  motionless  in, 
The  horizon's  edge,  the  flying  sea-crow,  the  fragrance  of  salt 

marsh  and  shore  mud, 
These  became  part  of  that  child. 

It  was  indeed  on  Long  Island  that  much  of  his  first  work  was 
written.  He  told  a  friend  that  he  went  down  on  Long  Island 
on  a  cold,  bleak  promontory,  where  but  one  farmer  resided,  and 
lived  there  while  Leaves  of  Grass  was  gestating.  There  he  wrote 
his  first  copy,  and  threw  it  into  the  sea. 

VII 

Two  great  races  of  Northern  Europe,  it  will  be  seen,  combined 
to  produce  a  typical  man  :  the  Dutch  contributed  the  more  per- 
sonal habits  and  traits,  the  English,  sturdiness,  force,  and  wilfulness. 
An  inheritance  of  Quaker  spirituality  made  complete  the  character 
on  the  religious  and  intuitive  side.  Heredity  and  training  accrue 
thus  far  to  democracy.  Whitman  was  born  of  the  people,  of  lib- 
eral and  revolutionary  stock.  Political  aristocracy  had  no  part  in 
his  making.  His  ancestry  and  training  are  paralleled  by  that  of 


xxiv  SELECTIONS   FROM   WALT   WHITMAN 

Lincoln  and  Grant,  who  sprang  directly  from  the  mass,  and 
represent  therefore  the  advance  of  humanity  as  a  whole.  If  we 
were  to  prophesy  from  the  beginning,  it  might  be  averred  that 
Whitman,  by  birth  and  education,  was  singularly  capacitated  to 
become  the  poet  of  the  Body  and  the  Soul.  His  splendid  health, 
life  out  of  doors,  power  of  sense  absorption,  would  render  him  able 
to  sing  the  "joys  of  mere  living."  Home  ties,  deep  human  sym- 
pathies, the  democracy  of  the  father,  the  intuition  of  the  mother, 
the  spirit  of  the  simple  Quaker  homestead,  the  habit  of  commun- 
ion with  nature,  would  tend  to  make  him  the  poet  of  the  Soul. 

VIII 

A  few  early  associations  belong  to  Brooklyn.  He  attended  the 
public  schools  of  that  city  at  intervals  until  he  was  about  fourteen 
years  of  age,  when  he  became  apprenticed  to  the  trade  of  printing 
in  the  office  of  The  Brooklyn  Star.  One  item  of  his  childhood  is 
worth  mentioning,  since  the  incident  links  the  poet  with  our 
national  life.  On  the  visit  of  Lafayette  to  this  country  in  1825 
he  assisted  at  the  dedication  of  a  public  library  in  Brooklyn.  On 
that  occasion,  while  helping  some  children  to  a  convenient  place  for 
witnessing  the  ceremony,  Lafayette  took  up  the  child  Walter,  then 
about  five  years  old,  held  him  in  his  arms,  and  kissed  him.  As  a 
boy,  too,  he  spent  much  time  at  the  river  docks  among  the  shipping 
and  listening  to  the  tales  of  the  seamen.  Such  association  formed 
no  inconsiderable  part  of  his  education  ;  for  the  seamen  of  that  day, 
as  John  Swinton  asserts,  were  men  of  tougher  stock  than  those  of 
the  present, —  brainy,  thoroughly  American,  literally  children  of 
the  Revolution. 

The  New  York  period,  from  about  1 840  to  i  862,  is  most  signifi- 
cant with  regard  to  Whitman's  real  education.  The  years  from 
1840  to  1855  were  the  decisive  ones  in  the  formation  of  his 
character  and  in  the  preparation  for  the  task  of  writing  Leaves  of 
Grass.  These  fifteen  years  of  miscellaneous  occupation  constituted 
his  apprenticeship  to  poetry.  Altogether  it  was  an  education  that 
exceeded  in  its  results  the  conscious  training  of  any  other  poet  of 
the  century.  He  spent  his  life  on  the  Open  Road,  absorbing  the 
outside  shows,  reading  inarticulate  objects  as  others  read  the  pages 
of  books.  Many  a  day  was  spent  on  the  ferries,  or  in  sailing  out 
to  sea  with  the  pilots,  or  in  riding  upon  the  omnibuses  through  the 
streets  "with  their  turbulent  musical  chorus."  "I  suppose  the 
critics  may  laugh,"  Whitman  once  said,  "but  the  influence  of 
those  Broadway  omnibus  jaunts  and  drives,  and  declamations,  and 


INTRODUCTION  xxv 

escapades,  undoubtedly  entered  into  the  gestation  of  Leaves  of 
Grass."  It  was  his  purpose  to  sound  all  the  experiences  of  life. 
He  experimented  in  unwonted  ways.  He  visited  hospitals,  alms- 
houses,  prisons,  and  the  haunts  of  vice.  He  attended  churches, 
lectures,  debates,  political  meetings,  read  at  libraries,  studied  at 
museums,  spoke  sometimes  in  debate,  having  trained  himself  as  an 
orator.  He  made  himself  familiar  with  all  kinds  of  employments, 
became  intimate  with  laborers,  business  men,  merchants,  and  men 
of  letters.  He  was  a  constant  attender  at  the  leading  New  York 
theatres  and  opera  houses,  hearing  every  important  actor  and  singer 
of  the  time.  He  was  especially  affected  by  the  elder  Booth  and 
by  Alboni.  His  love  of  music,  an  elemental  passion,  was  fully 
gratified  in  New  York.  Proud  Music  of  the  Storm,  written  in 
1871,  shows  a  perfect  intimacy  with  the  method  and  content  of 
music  :  — 

All  senses,  shows  and  objects,  lead  to  thee,  O  soul, 
But  now  it  seems  to  me  sound  leads  o'er  all  the  rest. 

"Give  me,"  he  exclaims,  "to  hold  all  sounds." 

Fill  me  with  all  the  voices  of  the  universe, 

Endow  me  with  their  throbbings,  Nature's  also, 

The  tempests,  waters,  winds,  operas  and  chants,  marches  and 

dances, 
Utter,  pour  in,  for  I  would  take  them  all  ! 

In  New  York  he  witnessed  all  the  national  movements  of  the  day. 
He  saw  or  heard  Andrew  Jackson,  Webster,  Clay,  Seward,  Van 
Buren,  Kossuth,  Halleck,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  Dickens,  and  other 
celebrities.  One  of  his  reminiscences  refers  to  John  Jacob  Asto^ 
The  year  1853  was  signal  as  being  the  World's  Fair  year  in  New 
York,  and  the  Exposition  opened  infinite  opportunities  to  the  eager 
Whitman.  Through  these  years  his  curiosity  was  unbounded. 
His  interests  were  absolutely  universal,  and  his  absorptive  power 
was  limited  only  by  the  things  to  be  observed.  Withal  he 
accomplished,  in  an  almost  secret  way,  much  careful  reading  and 
study.  He  collected  immense  scrap-books  of  articles  on  all  man- 
ner of  subjects,  made  abstracts  of  books  and  lectures,  wrote  out 
outlines  of  original  lectures  on  history,  philosophy,  and  politics. 
He  was  everywhere  observant,  absorbent,  reflective,  thoughtful. 
His  enormous  knowledge,  universal  sympathies,  and  serene  wisdom 
were  gained  during  this  poetic  apprenticeship.  Out  of  the  vision 


xxvi  SELECTIONS  FROM   WALT   WHITMAN 

which  the  soul  saw  of  life  in  the  mirror  of  the  world  Whit- 
man's poems  were  composed.  For  an  occupation  he  engaged 
in  journalism,  editing  at  different  times  The  Brooklyn  Eagle  and 
The  Freeman.  At  other  times  he  took  up  house-building,  aban- 
doning this  occupation  after  a  few  years,  when  it  had  become  too 
exacting  and  remunerative.  In  1 849  he  began  his  Wanderjabren, 
travelling  through  the  Central  West  and  the  South.  He  remained 
in  New  Orleans  a  year  on  the  staff  of  the  Crescent  newspaper.  In 
his  journeys  through  the  States  he  found  "  wonders,  revelations, 
the  real  America."  In  travel  he  gathered  materials  with  boundless 
curiosity.  No  one  can  know  what  multitudes  went  to  the  making 
of  the  composite  Democratic  Individual  that  uttered  The  Song  of 
Myself. 

While  editor  of  The  Freeman,  he  became  one  of  the  leading 
members  of  the  group  of  New  York  Bohemians  that  met  nightly 
at  PfafF's  restaurant  on  Broadway  to  celebrate  nationality  in  litera- 
ture and  art.  For  the  decade  preceding  the  war,  The  Saturday 
Press,  assisted  by  the  comic  Vanity  Fair  under  the  editorship  of 
Charles  Farrar  Browne,  or  "Artemus  Ward,"  embodied  the  new 
literary  movement  of  the  city.  With  plenty  of  wit  and  cleverness, 
and  some  cynicism,  the  writers  of  these  journals  led  the  attack 
against  literary  shams.  Among  the  Pfaffian  group  were  Fitz-James 
O'Brien,  Fitzhugh  Ludlow,  Aldrich,  Stedman,  William  Winter, 
Ned  Wilkins,  George  Arnold,  Gardette,  "Artemus  Ward,"  Ada 
Clare,  the  "  Queen,"  and  a  score  of  others.  The  order  had  been 
established  by  Henry  Clapp,  who  transplanted  from  Paris  the 
moods  and  methods  of  Bohemia  on  the  pattern  of  Henry  Miirger's 
Vie  de  Boheme.  Of  this  group  Whitman  was  a  recognized  leader. 
Some  of  his  stories  were  written  at  the  hall  of  meeting.  In  one  of 
his  note-books  is  a  rough  sketch  of  a  poem,  beginning,  "  The  vault 
at  PfafFs  where  the  drinkers  and  laughers  meet  to  eat  and  drink 
and  carouse,"  and  closing  :  "  You  phantoms  !  oft  I  pause,  yearn  to 
arrest  some  one  of  you  !  Oft  I  doubt  your  reality,  suspect  all  is 
but  a  pageant."  In  an  interview  published  in  The  Brooklyn  Eagle 
in  1886,  Whitman  gives  an  account  of  the  meetings  :  ««  I  used  to 
go  to  PfafFs  nearly  every  night.  It  used  to  be  a  pleasant  place  to  go 
in  the  evening  after  finishing  the  work  of  the  day.  When  it  began 
to  grow  dark,  Pfaff  would  invite  everybody  who  happened  to  be 
sitting  in  the  cave  he  had  under  the  sidewalk  to  some  other  part  of 
the  restaurant.  There  was  a  long  table  extending  the  length  of 
the  cave  ;  and  as  the  Bohemians  put  in  an  appearance  Henry 
Clapp  would  take  a  seat  at  the  head  of  the  table.  I  think  there 


INrR  OD  UCriON  xxvii 

was  as  good  talk  around  that  table  as  took  place  anywhere  in  the 
world.  Clapp  was  a  very  witty  man.  Fitz-James  O'Brien  was 
very  bright.  Ned  Wilkins,  who  used  to  be  the  dramatic  critic  of 
The  Herald,  was  another  bright  man.  There  were  between 
twenty-five  or  thirty  journalists,  authors,  artists,  and  actors  who 
made  up  the  company  that  took  possession  of  the  cave  under  the 
sidewalk. ' ' 

During  this  period  Whitman  remained  in  perfect  health.  He 
seemed  to  be  as  finely  related  to  Nature  by  his  exquisite  senses 
and  physical  constitution  as  he  was  to  sphitual  facts  by  his  men- 
tality. Constant  communication  with  the  sea,  observation  of  the 
night  and  stars,  affiliation  with  the  woods  and  winds  and  the  broad 
day,  taught  him  the  lore  that  gave  lessons  to  daily  living  and  to  all 
else.  When  in  1873  he  suffered  paralysis  and  turned  in  his  loneli- 
ness to  record  the  doings  of  nature  in  and  about  Camden,  it  is  im- 
possible not  to  see  that  observation  and  absorption  of  nature  were 
habitual  with  him  from  childhood. 

In  the  midst  of  these  years  one  incident  of  his  real  biography 
appears, —  the  only  fact,  perhaps,  worthy  of  report, —  the  one  that 
gives  meaning  to  his  life,  explains  his  poems,  and  certifies  to  his 
right  to  immortality.  About  the  year  1850,  apparently  as  the 
result  of  a  momentary  inspiration,  in  reality  as  issue  of  a  life  per- 
fected symmetrically  in  every  faculty  of  being,  physical  and 
psychical,  some  inner  change  of  consciousness,  some  increase  in 
ideal  experience,  some  accession  of  power,  took  place.  The  nature 
of  the  experience  cannot  be  fully  described,  though  the  phenome- 
non is  not  new  in  the  history  of  the  world.  One  becomes  aware 
of  the  attainment  of  a  higher  consciousness,  of  passage  into  a 
region  where  new  motives  form  and  new  knowledge  accrues.  Mr. 
Stedman,  somewhat  lightly,  though  with  his  eye  on  the  fact,  gives 
testimony  that  Whitman  "underwent  conversion,  experienced 
a  change  of  thought  and  style,  and  professed  a  new  departure  in 
verse,  dress,  and  way  of  life. ' '  Dr.  Richard  Maurice  Bucke,  with 
a  truer  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  revelation,  relying  on  the 
phenomenon  of  exceptional  development  which  Whitman  presents 
in  respect  to  physical,  intellectual,  moral,  and  emotional  stature, 
seeing  clearly  that  such  experience  constitutes  an  evolutionary 
advance  in  the  human  world,  a  new  variety  or  species  of  mental 
wisdom,  advances  the  theory  that  Whitman,  at  this  period,  rose 
into  a  higher  state  of  consciousness,  which  may  be  called 
"cosmic,"  by  which  is  meant  that  to  the  ordinary  self-con- 
sciousness there  was  added  a  higher  form,  which  includes  the 


xxviii  SELECTIONS   FROM   WALT   WHITMAN 

knowledge  of  life,  death,  immortality,  and  the  cosmical  order. 
Upon  the  fact  of  a  new  and  superior  reading  of  the  universe, 
Whitman  bases  his  enormous  claims  for  recognition. 

I  too,  following  many  and  follow' d  by  many,  inaugurate  a  relig- 
ion, I  descend  into  the  arena, 

(It  may  be  I  am  destin'd  to  utter  the  loudest  cries  there,  the 
winner's  pealing  shouts, 

Who  knows  ?  they  may  rise  from  me  yet,  and  soar  above  every- 
thing. ) 

Each  is  not  for  its  own  sake, 

I  say  the  whole  earth  and  all  the  stars  in  the  sky  are  for  relig- 
ion's sake. 

If  Leaves  of  Grass  is  not  something  more  than  a  new  collation 
of  phrases,  if  it  is  not  something  more  than  a  new  literary  method, 
if  it  does  not  embody  a  new  human  experience,  if  it  is  not  a  new 
interpretation  of  the  facts  of  existence,  if  it  is  not  a  new  revelation 
of  truth,  then  it  is  without  meaning,  and  doomed  soon  to  pass 
utterly  away.  A  mere  trick  of  speech  can  have  no  permanent 
influence  on  the  world.  But  the  book  appears  to  be  the  work  of 
one  who  has  suddenly  advanced  into  a  new  circle  of  knowledge. 
From  1850  to  1855  Whitman  was  absorbed  in  the  contemplation 
and  investigation  of  the  newly  revealed  world  of  his  being.  He 
gave  up  all  other  occupation,  under  the  compulsion  of  a  new  ideal, 
and  became  a  solitary,  seeking  in  secret  some  recess  in  the  woods 
or  by  the  sea  that  he  might  jot  down  with  more  absolute  precision 
the  passing  events  of  his  experience.  "  You  contain  enough 
Walt,"  the  new  Genius  kept  saying,  "why  don't  you  let  it  out, 
then  ?  "  It  was  true.  The  man  had  content  for  prophecy. 

I  lie  abstracted  and  hear  beautiful  tales  of  things  and  the  reasons 

of  things, 
They  are  so  beautiful  I  nudge  myself  to  listen. 

I  cannot  say  to  any  person  what  I  hear  —  I  cannot  say  it  to 
myself — it  is  very  wonderful. 

The  consciousness  to  which  he  had  now  arrived  may  well  be 
called  "  cosmic,"  for  it  is  always  to  cosmic  unity  that  his  most 
mystic  and  prophetic  poems  refer. 

I  sing  to  the  last  the  equalities  modern  or  old. 


INTR  OD  UCTION  xxix 

I  sing  the  endless  finales  of  things, 

I  say  Nature  continues,  glory  continues, 

I  praise  with  electric  voice, 

For  I  do  not  see  one  imperfection  in  the  universe, 

And   I  do  not  see  one  cause  or  result  lamentable  at  last  in  the 


Knowing  the  cosmical  integrity,  he  can  sing  under  the  sun 
unmitigated  adoration  :  "All  is  truth  without  exception."  "And 
henceforth  I  will  go  celebrate  anything  I  see  or  am,  and  sing  and 
laugh  and  deny  nothing."  One  section  of  the  Song  of  Myself, 
the  fifth,  must  refer  to  the  new  revealment :  — 

Swiftly  arose  and  spread  around  me  the  peace  and  knowledge 

that  pass  all  the  argument  of  the  earth, 

And  I  know  that  the  hand  of  God  is  the  promise  of  my  own, 
And  I  know  that  the  spirit  of  God  is  the  brother  of  my  own, 
And  that  all  the  men  ever  born  are  also  my  brothers,  and  the 

women  my  sisters  and  lovers, 
And  that  a  kelson  of  the  creation  is  love, 
And  limitless  are  leaves  stiff  or  drooping  in  the  fields, 
And  brown  ants  in  the  little  wells  beneath  them, 
And  mossy  scabs  of  the  worm  fence,  heap'd  stones,  elder,  mul- 
lein and  poke-weed. 

Such  utterance  is  not  wholly  new  in  literature.  Immortality 
has  been  held  as  a  dogma  for  many  centuries.  Evil  has  been 
pronounced  null,  and  love  declared  to  be  universal.  But  Whit- 
man differs  from  all  others  in  the  certainty  of  his  knowledge.  He 
does  not  speculate  about  love  and  death.  He  knows  he  is  an 
immortal  soul.  His  surety  is  grounded  in  consciousness.  This 
"conversion,"  at  about  the  age  of  thirty,  is  the  most  important 
fact  in  Whitman's  biography.  Leaves  of  Grass  can  be  accounted 
for  on  no  other  ground  than  that  it  was  the  product  of  what  we 
call  "genius,"  or  "inspiration." 

IX 

In  1862  Whitman,  on  hearing  that  his  brother  George  had 
been  wounded  at  Fredericksburg,  started  for  the  army  camp,  then 
on  the  Rappahannock.  Finding  his  brother  out  of  danger,  he  re- 
mained on  the  field  of  war  ;  but,  as  he  did  not  feel  "  called  "  to 
carry  arms,  his  mission  not  being  to  fight,  but  to  save,  he  engaged 
as  a  volunteer  in  the  hospital  service.  In  this  occupation  he  re- 


xxx  SELECTIONS   FROM   WALT   WHITMAN 

mained  till  the  close  of  the  war,  and  as  long  thereafter  as  his  office 
was  needed.  During  this  period  he  supported  himself  as  a  war 
correspondent  to  Northern  papers  and  by  copying  in  offices,  until, 
in  1865,  he  was  tendered  a  clerkship  in  a  government  department. 
As  an  army  nurse,  he  is  reported  as  having  made  upward  of  six 
hundred  visits  or  tours,  tended  a  hundred  thousand  soldiers,  and 
distributed  many  thousands  of  dollars,  the  gifts  of  Northern  friends. 
It  is  difficult  to  describe  the  agency  of  the  poet  in  the  office  of 
nurse.  The  numerical  account  of  his  cases  gives  no  idea  of  the 
personal  character  of  his  ministration.  The  methods  he  employed 
for  restoring  health  and  healing  were  characteristic  of  the  man. 
He  performed  the  ordinary  function  of  the  physician  and  nurse, 
but  beyond  these  by  a  few  simple  expedients  he  accomplished 
more  remarkable  results  by  quietly  affecting  the  spiritual  nature  of 
the  men.  "  To  many  of  the  wounded  and  sick,  especially  the 
youngsters,"  he  said,  "there  is  something  in  personal  love, 
caresses  and  the  magnetic  flood  of  sympathy  and  friendship,  that 
does,  in  its  way,  more  good  than  all  the  medicines  in  the  world. 
The  American  soldier  is  full  of  affection,  and  the  yearning  for 
affection.  And  it  comes  wonderfully  grateful  to  him  to  have  this 
yearning  gratified  when  he  is  laid  up  with  wounds  or  illness,  far 
away  from  home,  among  strangers.  Many  will  think  this  merely 
sentimentalism,  but  I  know  it  is  the  most  solid  of  facts.  I  believe 
that  even  the  moving  around  among  the  men,  or  through  the  ward, 
of  a  hearty,  healthy,  clean,  strong,  generous-souled  person,  man  or 
woman,  full  of  humanity  and  love,  sending  out  invisible,  constant 
currents  thereof,  does  immense  good  to  the  sick  and  wounded." 
So  he  came  into  their  presence  always  buoyant  and  cheerful,  and 
sought  particularly  to  satisfy  their  affectionate  longings.  He  was 
physician,  nurse,  and  mother  to  all.  The  external  details  of  his 
ministry  are  vividly  reported  in  one  of  the  poems  of  the  Drum-Taps 
series :  — 

Bearing  the  bandages,  water  and  sponge, 

Straight  and  swift  to  my  wounded  I  go, 

Where  they  lie  on  the  ground  after  the  battle  brought  in, 

Where  their  priceless  blood  reddens  the  grass  the  ground, 

Or  to  the  rows  of  the  hospital  tent,  or  under  the  roof 'd  hospitals, 

To  the  long  rows  of  cots  up  and  down  each  side  I  return, 

To  each  and  all  one  after  another  I  draw  near,  not  one  do  I  miss. 

I  onward  go,  I  stop, 

With  hinged  knees  and  steady  hand  to  dress  wounds, 


INTRODUCTION  xxxi 

I  am  firm  with  each,  the  pangs  are  sharp  yet  unavoidable, 

One  turns  to  me  his  appealing  eyes  —  poor  boy  !     I  never  knew 

you, 
Yet  I  think  I  could  not  refuse  this  moment  to  die  for  you,  if  that 

would  save  you. 

But  this  is  not  the  whole  account.  He  was  seen  in  1863  by 
Mr.  Burroughs,  who  made  at  the  time  the  following  note:  "  The 
actual  scene  of  this  man  moving  among  the  maimed,  the  pale,  the 
low-spirited,  the  near-to-death,  with  all  the  incidents  and  the 
interchange  between  him  and  those  suffering  ones,  often  young 
almost  to  childhood,  can  hardly  be  pictured  by  any  pen,  however 
expert.  His  magnetism  was  incredible  and  exhaustless.  It  is  no 
figure  of  speech,  a  fact  deeper  than  speech.  The  lustreless  eye 
brightened  up  at  his  approach;  his  commonplace  words  invigorated; 
a  bracing  air  seemed  to  fill  the  ward  and  neutralize  the  bad  smells. ' ' 
To  the  same  effect  is  the  report  of  an  eye-witness  who  wrote  in  The 
New  York  Her  aid  \n  1876  an  account  of  what  he  saw  in  the  hos- 
pitals: "When  Whitman  appeared,  in  passing  along,  there  was  a 
smile  of  affection  and  welcome  on  every  face,  however  wan,  and 
his  presence  seemed  to  light  up  the  place  as  it  might  be  lit  by  the 
presence  of  the  Son  of  Love.  From  cot  to  cot  they  called  him, 
often  in  tremulous  tones  or  in  whispers  ;  they  embraced  him, 
they  touched  his  hand,  they  gazed  at  him.  To  one  he  gave  a 
few  words  of  cheer,  for  another  he  wrote  a  letter  home,  to  others 
he  gave  an  orange,  a  few  comfits,  a  cigar,  a  pipe  and  tobacco, 
a  sheet  of  paper,  or  a  postage  stamp,  all  of  which,  and  many  other 
things,  were  in  his  capacious  haversack.  From  another  he  would 
receive  a  dying  message  for  mother,  wife,  or  sweetheart;  for 
another  he  would  promise  to  go  on  an  errand;  to  another,  some 
special  friend,  very  low,  he  would  give  a  manly  farewell  kiss. 
He  did  the  things  for  them  which  no  nurse  or  doctor  could  do, 
and  he  seemed  to  leave  a  benediction  at  every  cot  as  he  passed 
along.  The  lights  had  gleamed  for  hours  in  the  hospital  that 
night  before  he  left  it;  and,  as  he  took  his  way  toward  the  door, 
you  could  hear  the  voice  of  many  a  stricken  hero  calling,  '  Walt, 
Walt,  Walt,  come  again.'  '  One  characteristic  incident,  illus- 
trative of  the  silent  sympathy  existing  between  nurse  and  patient,  is 
told  by  Whitman  himself  of  a  youth  who,  as  the  poet  sat  looking 
at  him  while  he  lay  asleep,  suddenly,  without  the  least  start, 
awakened,  opened  his  eyes,  gave  him  a  long  steady  look,  turning 
his  face  very  slightly  to  gaze  easier, —  one  long  clear  silent  look, — 


xxxii  SELECTIONS  FROM   WALT  WHITMAN 

a  slight  sigh, —  then  turned  back  and  went  into  his  doze  again. 
"Little  he  knew,"  the  poet  added,  "poor,  death-stricken  boy, 
the  heart  of  the  stranger  that  hovered  near."  The  mystic  inter- 
pretation of  some  such  incident  is  given  in  O  Tan- Faced  Prairie- 
Boy  :  — 

You  came,  taciturn,  with  nothing  to  give  —  we  but  look'd  on 

each  other, 
When  lo!   more  than  all  the  gifts  of  the  world  you  gave  me. 

The  issues  of  the  war  to  Whitman  were  many.  His  character 
was  rounded  full  circle  by  devotional  service.  His  knowledge  of 
life  was  infinitely  extended.  He  became  the  high  priest  of  pain 
and  the  apostle  of  love.  The  war  brought  to  maturity  his  large 
emotional  nature,  arousing,  bringing  out,  and  deciding  undreamed 
of  depths  of  affection.  To  his  dying  day  he  remembered  the 
"  experience  sweet  and  sad  "  that 

Many  a  soldier's  loving  arms  about  this  neck  have  cross' d  and 

rested, 
Many  a  soldier's  kiss  dwells  on  these  bearded  lips. 

He  wished  his  name  might  be  published  as  that  of  the  tenderest 
lover.  He  sought  friends  who  were  not  proud  of  his  songs,  but  of 
the  measureless  ocean  of  love  within  him. 

Beauty,  knowledge,  inure  not  to  me  —  yet  there  are  two  or  three 

things  inure  to  me, 

I  have  nourish'd  the  wounded  and  sooth'd  many  a  dying  soldier, 
And  at  intervals  waiting  or  in  the  midst  of  camp, 
Composed  these  songs. 

Dearest  comrades,  all  is  over  and  long  gone, 

But  love  is  not  over  —  and  what  love,  O  comrades  ! 

Perfume  from  battle-fields  rising,  up  from  the  fcetor  arising. 

Perfume  therefore  my  chant,  O  love,  immortal  love, 

Give  me  to  bathe  the  memories  of  all  dead  soldiers, 

Shroud  them,  embalm  them,  cover  them  all  over  with  tender  pride. 

Perfume  all  —  make  all  wholesome, 

Make  these  ashes  to  nourish  and  blossom, 

O  love,  solve  all,  fructify  all  with  the  last  chemistry. 

Give  me  exhaustless,  make  me  a  fountain, 


INTRODUCTION  xxxiii 

That  I  exhale  love  from  me  wherever  I  go  like  a  moist  perennial 

dew, 
For  the  ashes  of  all  dead  soldiers  South  or  North. 

The  war  was  his  tutor  in  democracy.  His  "most  fervent 
views  of  the  true  ensemble  and  extent  of  the  States  ' '  were  gained 
at  this  event.  He  studied  Lincoln  closely,  and  caught  the  deep 
though  subtle  and  indirect  expression  of  his  face.  He  observed 
the  heroism  of  soldiers  marching  to  the  front,  returning  from  battle, 
dying  on  the  field  or  in  hospitals,  displaying  under  all  circumstances 
the  utmost  faith  and  fortitude,  in  life  courageous,  in  death  sublime. 
The  people  were  tested,  and  personality  put  to  proof.  He  became 
proud  of  the  armies, — "the  noblest  that  ever  marched." 

Race  of  veterans  —  race  of  victors  ! 

Race  of  the  soil,  ready  for  conflict  —  race  of  the  conquering 

march  ! 

(No  more  credulity's  race,  abiding-temper 'd  race,) 
Race  henceforth  owning  no  law  but  the  law  of  itself, 
Race  of  passion  and  the  storm. 

The  race  was  proven  capable  of  making  sacrifices  for  an  ideal 
purpose.  He  perceived  the  new  chivalry  arising,  the  chivalry  of 
comradeship.  He  saw  that  love  lay  latent  in  all  hearts,  and  that 
a  practical  comradeship  already  existed  among  men.  "In  the 
hospitals,"  he  wrote  in  1863,  "among  the  American  soldiers, 
East  and  West,  North  and  South,  I  could  not  describe  to  you 
what  mutual  attachments,  passing  deep  and  tender.  Some  have 
died,  but  the  love  for  them  lives  so  long  as  I  draw  breath.  The 
soldiers  know  how  to  love  too,  when  once  they  have  the  right 
person.  It  is  wonderful.  You  see  I  am  running  off  into  the 
clouds  (perhaps  my  element)." 

The  war  again  was  the  occasion  of  his  own  physical  prostration, 
the  checking  of  his  enormous  vitality  at  its  high  tide.  He  said  he 
volunteered  as  a  nurse  because  he  was  so  strong  and  well.  But  in 
1 864  the  strain,  emotional  as  well  as  physical,  began  to  tell  on 
him.  In  1865  he  suffered  a  temporary  prostration,  due  to  malaria 
and  to  blood-poisoning  absorbed  from  gangrenous  wounds.  A 
slight  paralytic  attack  occurred  in  1870.  In  1873  he  was  com- 
pletely prostrated  by  paralysis,  complicated  by  malaria  and  blood- 
poisoning.  He  was  brought  to  Camden,  New  Jersey,  where  he 
lived  in  retirement  till  the  end,  with  spells  of  illness  and  returning 


xxxiv  SELECTIONS  FROM   WALT  WHITMAN 

strength,  never  for  any  time  freed  from  physical  debility  and  the 
inertia  of  paralysis.  The  history  of  the  war  contains  no  nobler 
instance  of  sacrifice. 

The  war  tested  his  religion  and  faith.  He  was  able  to  give  a 
practical  demonstration  of  his  principles  of  democracy  by  realizing 
concretely  with  thousands  of  men  the  joy  of  manly  attachment. 
The  war  tried  his  sanity,  his  cheerfulness,  his  faith  and  optimism, 
his  own  essential  goodness  and  charity.  In  all  trials  his  life  was 
a  practical  commentary  on  the  book  he  was  writing. 

Lastly,  the  war  supplied  him  with  themes  for  the  sweetest  and 
purest  of  his  poems,  and  incidents  and  thoughts  for  the  most  repre- 
sentative of  his  prose  writings.  The  Drum-Taps  and  the  poems 
on  Lincoln,  unique  in  their  imaginative  and  spiritual  suggestiveness, 
which  contain  perhaps  the  most  thrilling  summons  to  arms  and  at 
the  same  time  the  most  deeply  moving  aspects  of  suffering  and 
death  ever  presented  in  song,  were  published  in  1865,  the  imme- 
diate output  of  the  conflict.  Democratic  Vistas,  his  most  considera- 
ble prose  work,  appeared  in  1871,  embodying  the  thoughts  tha 
sprang  from  the  emotions  stirred  by  the  sight  of  "  warlike  Amer- 
ica rising  and  breaking  chains."  His  Memoranda  of  the  War, 
first  published  in  1875,  but  written  from  day  to  day  on  the  spot 
of  encounter  in  a  vivid,  short-hand,  impressionistic  style,  contains 
the  most  thrilling  and  powerful  descriptions  of  battle  and  hospital 
scenes  that  the  war  records  afford.  Poems  and  memoranda, 
written  on  odd  scraps  of  paper  and  in  blood-smutched  note-books, 
breathe  the  very  atmosphere  of  the  moment  and  incident.  Col- 
lectively, these  works  completely  identify  the  age  of  Lincoln,  with 
its  characteristic  scenes,  passions,  ideas,  and  flame-like  results. 
Finally,  a  new  interpretation  was  given  to  life  and  the  world,  the 
"mystic  army  "  and  the  "mighty  bivouac-field  and  waiting-camp 
of  all." 

As  I  ponder 'd  in  silence, 

Returning  upon  my  poems,  considering,  lingering  long, 

A  Phantom  arose  before  me  with  distrustful  aspect, 

Terrible  in  beauty,  age,  and  power, 

The  genius  of  poets  of  old  lands, 

As  to  me  directing  like  flame  its  eyes, 

With  finger  pointing  to  many  immortal  songs, 

And  menacing  voice,  What  singest  tbou  ?  it  said, 

Know'st  thou  not  there  is  but  one  theme  for  ever-enduring  bards  ? 

And  that  is  the  theme  of  War,  the  fortune  of  battles, 

The  making  of  perfect  soldiers. 


INTRODUCTION  xxxv 

Be  it  so,  then  I  answer 'd, 

/  too  haughty  Shade  also  sing  war,  and  a  longer  and  greater  one 

than  any, 
Waged  in  my  book  with  varying  'fortune,  with  flight,   advance 

and  retreat,  victory  defer r'  d  and  wavering, 
(  Tet  methinks  certain,  or  as  good  as  certain,  at  the  last, )    the 

field  the  world, 

For  life  and  death,  for  the  Body  and  for  the  eternal  Soul, 
.  Lot  I  too  am  come,  chanting  the  chant  of  battles, 
I  above  all  promote  brave  soldiers, 

And  then  — 

Presently  O  soldiers,  we  too  camp  in  our  place  in  the  bivouac- 
camps  of  green, 

But  we  need  not  provide  for  outposts,  nor  word  for  the  counter- 
sign, 

Nor  drummer  to  beat  the  morning  drum. 

X 

Summarizing  at  this  point  Whitman's  historical  relations,  it  may 
be  said  that  he  connects  the  two  great  eras  of  American  history, — 
the  era  of  independence  centering  in  the  Revolutionary  War  and 
the  era  of  social  union  that  concentrated  in  the  Civil  War;  and  he 
connects  them  with  a  completeness  and  integrity  that  can  be  pre- 
sumed of  no  other  American  author.  And  he  not  only  connects 
the  eras  historically,  but  he  embodies  their  results  in  his  own  per- 
sonality. As  a  child,  he  received  the  traditions  of  the  Revolution 
from  those  who  had  participated  in  the  struggle.  These  traditions 
related  to  independence,  self-assertion,  and  pride.  They  constitute 
the  first  principle  of  a  democratic  philosophy  and  the  first  factor  of 
its  practical  polity.  Whitman  himself  was  a  sharer  in  the  toils  of 
the  war  for  union.  He  became  its  chief  singer,  and  was  the  lead- 
ing spokesman  of  reconciliation.  The  second  great  principle  of 
democracy  is  love,  whose  concrete  form  is  federation  and  union. 
Leaves  of  Grass,  having  as  its  key-words  pride  and  love,  is  the 
exact  counterpart  of  American  history  thus  far.  Whitman  is  the 
genius  of  American  nationality. 

XI 

In  1873,  on  the  occasion  of  his  illness,  Whitman  removed  to 
Camden,  where  he  continued  to  reside  until  his  death.  With  this 
period  no  important  outward  event  is  associated.  The  poet,  often 


xxxvi  SELECTIONS  FROM   WALT  WHITMAN 

solitary,  harassed  by  pain,  grew  and  ripened  inwardly,  associating 
with  nature,  men,  and  books.  "I  came  to  Camden  to  die,"  he 
said,  "but  every  day  I  went  into  the  country  and  naked  bathed  in 
sunshine,  lived  with  the  birds  and  squirrels,  and  played  in  the 
water  with  the  fishes.  I  recovered  my  health  from  Nature  — 
strange  how  she  carries  us  through  periods  of  infirmity  out  into  the 
realms  of  freedom  and  health."  One  of  his  favorite  resorts  was 
Timber  Creek,  near  the  Delaware,  a  place  that  provided  him  with 
"  primitive  solitudes,  recluse  and  woody  banks,  sweet-feeding 
springs,  and  all  the  charms  that  birds,  grass,  wild-flowers,  rabbits 
and  squirrels,  and  old  walnut  trees  can  bring."  A  favorite  spot 
of  observation  was  the  Camden  ferry-boat,  upon  which  he  would 
cross  and  recross  the  Delaware,  absorbed  in  the  spectacle  of  the 
day  and  night.  At  times  he  suffered  pain,  neglect,  poverty;  but, 
for  the  most  part,  the  last  years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  kindly  associations  and  in  fruitful  labor.  Specimen  Days 
gives  abundant  evidence  of  an  inward  happiness,  even  though  cir- 
cumstances often  combined  against  his  serenity. 

After  surmounting  three-score  and  ten, 
With  all  their  chances,  changes,  losses,  sorrows, 
My  parents'  death,  the  vagaries  of  my  life,  the  many  tearing  pas- 
sions of  me,  the  war  of  '63  and  '4, 
As  some  old  broken  soldier,  after  a  long,  hot,  wearying  march,  or 

haply  after  battle, 
To-day  at  twilight,  hobbling,  answering  company  roll-call,  Here, 

with  vital  voice, 
Reporting  yet,  saluting  yet,  the  Officer  over  all. 

XII 

It  is  a  commonplace  observation  that  Leaves  of  Grass  abstracts 
a  reader  from  parlors  and  libraries,  but  aims  to  bring  him  into  the 
region  of  his  own  self-activity,  in  league  with  the  great  companions 
out  of  doors.  The  book  contains  a  personality,  and  is  freighted 
only  to  a  very  slight  degree  with  the  lore  of  libraries.  Probably 
not  a  single  learned  or  bookish  allusion  is  to  be  found  in  the  whole 
of  Leaves  of  Grass.  It  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  conclude 
that  Whitman  was  himself  unacquainted  with  books.  He  im- 
posed upon  his  readers  by  the  assumption  of  his  workmen's  dress 
and  his  hostility  to  the  conventional  forms  of  culture,  while  pleading 
for  the  dignity  of  the  simple  man  and  the  value  of  the  culture  of 
life.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  countless  books  went  to  the  making  of 


INTRODUCriON  xxxvii 

his  point  of  view.  His  theory  of  inclusiveness  contained  the  best 
things  said  and  thought  in  the  world.  He  who,  of  all  men  of  the 
century,  embodies  most  the  modern  movement  of  expansion,  could 
not  be  partial  in  his  preparation.  He  included  the  scholar  no  less 
than  the  workingman,  and  his  subtle  psychology  and  profound 
metaphysics  and  delicate  mysticism  afford  abundant  exercise  to  the 
scholastic  mind.  A  poem  like  Eidolons  is  unequivocal  in  asserting 
the  supremacy  of  mind-images,  "the  entities  of  entities."  Much 
as  he  pretended  to  contemn  culture,  he  was  himself  its  representa- 
tive. Before  1855  he  had  read  and  pondered  deeply  the  meaning 
of  the  Bible,  Homer  (which  he  knew  almost  by  heart),  Ossian, 
the  ancient  Hindu  poems,  Dante,  the  Greek  dramatists,  and  Shake- 
speare. He  had  familiarized  his  spirit  with  theirs,  and  identified 
himself  with  their  art.  He  affirms  he  sat  studying  long  at  the 
feet  of  the  old  masters,  and  this  is  literally  true.  Speaking  of 
Shakespeare,  he  once  said,  "If  I  had  not  stood  before  these  poems 
with  uncovered  head  fully  aware  of  their  colossal  grandeur  and 
beauty  of  form  and  spirit,  I  could  not  have  written  Leaves  of 
Grass."  The  great  literatures  served  as  a  challenge.  They 
taught  him  the  one  thing  they  can  teach  an  original  mind, —  self- 
respect. 

Dead  poets,  philosophs,  priests, 

Martyrs,  artists,  inventors,  governments  long  since, 

Language-shapers  on  other  shores, 

Nations  once  powerful,  now  reduced,  withdrawn,  or  desolate, 

I  dare  not  proceed  till  I  respectfully  credit  what  you  have  left 

wafted  hither, 

I  have  perused  it,  own  it  is  admirable,  (moving  awhile  among  it,) 
Think  nothing  can  ever  be  greater,  nothing  can  ever  deserve  more 

than  it  deserves, 

Regarding  it  all  intently  a  long  while,  then  dismissing  it, 
I  stand  in  my  place  with  my  own  day  here. 

At  two  periods  of  his  life  he  was  much  absorbed  in  reading. 
In  New  York,  during  the  years  preceding  the  first  edition  of  his 
poems,  he  was  an  omnivorous  reader,  and  brought  himself  fully  in 
touch  with  the  drift  of  thought  at  the  time.  He  read  newspapers 
and  magazines  to  keep  closer  to  the  people.  He  read  in  libraries; 
and,  on  the  event  of  an  outing  to  the  woods  or  sea,  he  would  carry 
a  book  to  provoke  thought.  The  enormous  scrap-books  he  made 
up  at  this  time,  containing  articles  on  every  subject,  with  passages 
underscored  and  commented  upon,  disclose  the  range  and  careful- 


xxxviii          SELECriONS  FROM   WALT  WHITMAN 

ness  of  his  reading.  One  of  these  books  contains  his  own  abstract 
of  the  poem  of  the  Cid  and  of  the  Nibelungen  Lied  and  accounts 
of  Dante  and  the  Divine  Comedy.  A  manuscript  note  indicates 
the  reading  of  the  Inferno  in  1859..  Among  his  memoranda  ap- 
pear directions  to  procure  and  read  certain  books, —  as,  "Get 
Schiller's  Complete  Works." 

Later  at  Camden,  in  the  quiet  of  his  seclusion,  he  again  brought 
himself  abreast  with  the  current  thought.  Concerning  his  occu- 
pation at  Timber  Creek  in  1879,  he  wrote:  "When  I  feel  in  the 
mood  I  read  and  filter  some  book  or  piece  or  page  or  author 
through  my  mind,  amid  these  influences,  in  these  surroundings. 
Queer  how  new  and  different  the  books  and  authors  appear  in  the 
open  air,  with  wind  blowing  and  birds  calling  in  the  bushes  and 
you  on  the  banks  of  the  negligent  pond.  I  get  some  old  edition  of 
no  pecuniary  value,  and  then  take  portions  in  my  pocket.  In  this 
way  I  have  dislocated  the  principal  American  writers  of  my  time 
—  Emerson,  Longfellow,  Whittier,  and  the  rest  —  with  translations 
of  the  French  Madame  Dudevant  (always  good  to  me),  th^  Ger- 
man metaphysician  Hegel,  and  nearly  all  the  current  foreign 
poets." 

The  fruits  of  much  reading  and  meditation  are  discoverable  in 
his  handling  of  scientific  principles  and  philosophic  formulas,  in  his 
penetrative  literary  criticism,  and  in  the  sweeping  generalizations 
that  illumine  his  prose  writings.  Among  his  lifelong  companions 
were  Scott's  novels  and  Border  Minstrelsy.  He  had  known  the 
Arabian  Nights  from  boyhood.  He  had  read  Emerson  but  casu- 
ally before  1855,  but  later  came  to  know  him  intimately.  George 
Sand  and  Tennyson  were  prime  favorites.  He  was  fond  of  recit- 
ing Ulysses,  and  he  looked  the  character.  A  little  poem  of  Miir- 
ger's  on  Death  had  especial  attractiveness.  Among  the  poems  he 
liked  to  recite  were  Schiller's  Diver,  John  Anderson,  Murger's 
Midnight  Visitor,  The  Bridge  of  Sighs,  The  Raven,  The  Passions, 
and  The  Battle  of  Naseby.  The  sayings  of  Epictetus  and  Rous- 
seau's Confessions  were  among  his  hand-books.  In  his  copy  of 
the  Tragedies  of  Euripides  is  the  memorandum:  "Had  this  vol- 
ume at  Washington  and  thro'  the  war  —  also  at  Camden  —  alto- 
gether all  of  20  years."  From  Poe  he  adopted  the  theory  that 
a  poem  should  be  short,  the  product  of  single  emotions.  In  one 
important  book  he  found  many  of  his  ideas  corroborated.  This 
was  Felton's  Ancient  and  Modern  Greece,  which  he  came  upon  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  read  innumerable  times  till  he  knew 
it  by  heart.  Once  in  conversation  with  Sidney  Morse  he  quoted 


INrR  OD  UCriON  xxxix 

from  Felton  the  following  passage  :  "  To  the  Greeks  the  natural 
man  was  not  the  savage  running  naked  in  the  woods,  but  the  man 
whose  senses,  imagination,  and  reason  are  unfolded  in  their  highest 
reach  ;  whose  bodily  force  and  mental  powers  are  in  equipoise, 
and  in  full  and  beautiful  action;  who  has  the  keenest  eye,  the 
surest  hand,  the  truest  ear,  the  richest  voice,  the  loftiest  and  most 
rhythmical  step;  whose  passions  though  strong  are  held  in  check, 
whose  moral  nature  runs  into  no  morbid  perversions,  and  whose 
intellectual  being  is  robustly  developed ;  whose  life  moves  on  in 
rhythmical  accord  with  God,  nature,  and  man,  with  no  discord 
except  to  break  its  monotony  and  to  be  resolved  in  the  harmony 
of  its  peaceful  and  painless  close.  This  is  the  ideal  being,  whose 
nature  is  unfolded  without  disease,  imperfection,  or  sin,  to  perpet- 
ual happiness  and  joy."  No  better  description  than  this  could  be 
written  of  Whitman's  ideal  American.  Many  such  passages  might 
be  gleaned  from  Whitman's  scrap-books,  which  contain  similar 
suggestive  ideas.  The  chief  fact,  however,  is  the  supremacy,  amid 
all  the  books,  of  Whitman's  self.  That  which  he  read  was  taken 
for  verification  to  his  own  consciousness.  As  Horace  Traubel 
says,  "He  was  never  cheated  by  books."  His  knowledge  never 
appeared  as  pedantry,  but  was  dissolved  in  the  intelligence.  If 
the  reading  of  books  made  literature  or  if  culture  made  genius, 
there  would  be  no  lack  of  these  things  in  the  world.  Louis  James 
Block  describes  in  a  poem  to  Whitman  what  seems  to  me  to  be  the 
genuine  sources  of  Leaves  of  Grass :  — 

God,  who  is  Man  at  highest,  and  Nature  that  toils  up  to  Man, 

Dwelt  in  thy  song  and  in  thee, — 

Not  as  involved  in  the  garb  of  the  dim  and  mouldering  Past, 

Not  as  in  tomes  and  in  tombs, 

But  truth,  alive  and  afresh, 

Flowing  again  in  the  mind 

That  gave  up  its  life  to  be  cleansed  and  refilled  with  its  essences 

pure, 
Bubbling  anew  in  this  late  year  of  the  world. 

XIII 

"Publish  my  name,"  said  the  poet,  "and  hang  up  my  picture 
as  that  of  the  tenderest  lover."  Whitman  had  a  passion  for 
friends.  Sympathy  was  his  fundamental  quality.  The  Calamus 
poems  represent  his  "frailest  leaves,"  yet  his  "strongest  lasting." 
He  had  the  rare  faculty  of  drawing  all  men  to  him.  "  Over  and 


xl  SELECTIONS  FROM   WALT  WHITMAN 

above  all  ordinary  greatness,"  said  Dr.  Bucke,  in  his  funeral  ad- 
dress, "  Whitman  had  in  an  eminent  degree  that  crowning  endow- 
ment, faculty,  quality,  or  whatever  it  may  be  called,  the  posses- 
sion of  which  causes  a  man  to  be  picked  out  from  the  rest  and  set 
apart  as  an  object  of  affection.  In  his  own  vivid  language,  '  He 
has  the  pass-key  of  hearts,  to  him  the  response  of  the  prying  of 
hands  on  the  knobs.'  '  Of  this  fact  there  are  many  testimonies. 
Dr.  Bucke  in  1877  first  called  upon  the  man  whose  poems  he  had 
read  with  delight  and  enthusiasm.  Long  after  the  interview  he 
said  of  it :  "It  would  be  nothing  more  than  the  simple  truth  to 
state  that  I  was  by  it  lifted  to  and  set  upon  a  higher  plane  of  exist- 
ence, upon  which  I  have  more  or  less  continuously  lived  ever 
since  ;  that  is,  for  a  period  of  eighteen  years.  And  my  feeling 
toward  the  man,  Walt  Whitman,  from  that  day  to  the  present  has 
been  and  is  that  of  the  deepest  affection  and  reverence."  The 
Rev.  Moncure  D.  Con  way  visited  Whitman  on  Long  Island 
in  1865,  and  declared  that  after  meeting  him  he  went  off  to  find 
himself  almost  sleepless  with  thinking  of  his  new  acquaintance. 
"He  had  so  magnetized  me,"  he  said,  "so  charged  me,  as  it 
were,  with  something  indefinable,  that  for  the  time  the  only  wise 
course  of  life  seemed  to  be  to  put  on  a  blue  shirt  and  a  blouse,  and 
loaf  about  Mannahatta  and  Paumanok."  And  John  Burroughs 
gives  testimony:  "To  tell  me  that  Whitman  is  not  a  large,  fine, 
fresh,  magnetic  personality,  making  you  love  him  and  want  al- 
ways to  be  with  him,  were  to  tell  me  that  my  whole  past  life  is  a 
deception  and  all  the  impression  of  my  perceptions  a  fraud."  On 
Whitman's  own  part  the  love  of  men  and  women  was  a  necessity 
of  his  nature.  He  compelled  devotion.  He  yearned  for  sym- 
pathy. Emerson  once  asked  him  what  he  found  in  common  peo- 
ple, and  Thoreau  put  the  same  question:  "What  is  there  in  the 
people?  Pshaw!  what  do  you  (a  man  who  sees  as  well  as  any- 
body) find  in  all  this  cheating  political  corruption  ?  "  The  poet's 
answer  is  not  recorded,  but  its  substance  may  be  found  in  his  com- 
ment on  Tennyson:  "Tennyson  seems  to  me  to  be  a  superb 
fellow;  only  with  a  personality  such  as  his,  what  a  pity  not  to  give 
himself  to  men.  A  man  cannot  invest  his  capital  'better  than  in 
comradeship.  Literary  men  and  artists  seem  to  shrink  from  com- 
panionship; to  me  it  is  exhilarating,  affects  me  in  the  same  way 
that  the  light  or  storm  does."  He  fed  upon  the  people  as  bees 
upon  flowers.  L.  N.  Fowler,  the  phrenologist,  told  him,  "You 
are  one  of  the  friendliest  men  in  the  world,  and  your  happiness  is 
greatly  dependent  upon  your  social  relations."  Fortunately,  his 


INTRODUCTION  xll 

realized  identities  were  well-nigh  universal.  Alma  Johnston  relates 
an  incident  of  a  visit  Whitman  made  to  some  Indian  prisoners  in 
Kansas  before  the  Civil  War,  in  company  with  the  governor  of  the 
State  and  some  other  officials.  Some  thirty  Indians,  all  of  them 
chiefs,  were  grouped  in  the  jail  yard,  where  they  sullenly  squatted, 
with  their  blankets  wrapped  around  them.  The  governor  and  the 
officers  were  introduced  to  them,  but  not  a  savage  moved.  Then 
Whitman  in  his  flannel  shirt  and  his  broad-brimmed  hat  stepped 
forward,  and  held  out  his  hand.  The  leading  chiefs  looked  at  him 
for  a  moment,  grasped  his  preferred  hand  with  an  emphatic 
"  How!  "  and  turned  to  the  others.  Thereupon  the  Indians  rose 
and  greeted  him.  "I  suppose,"  explained  Whitman,  "they 
recognized  the  savage  in  me, —  a  comradeship  to  which  their  nat- 
ure responded."  It  would  be  indeed  impossible  to  exaggerate  the 
affection  yielded  him  by  multitudes  of  persons  of  every  class. 
Many  of  the  friends  of  his  life  are  nameless, —  men  in  prisons,  hospi- 
tals, and  workshops,  engineers,  street-car  drivers  and  conductors, 
the  "help"  on  the  ferries  and  pilot  boats,  omnibus  drivers,  and, 
above  all,  the  soldiers  of  the  war.  The  affection  existing  between 
him  and  these  men  can  hardly  be  understood,  much  less  described. 
Only  one  instance  of  his  "  manly  attachment  "  is  given  permanent 
record  in  the  letters  to  Peter  Doyle,  his  "dear  son,"  "dear  boy 
Pete."  These  were  men  he  attracted  simply  by  his  personality, 
who  did  not  know  he  had  ever  written  a  line  of  poetry  or  who,  if 
they  knew,  like  Pete  Doyle,  "  did  not  know  what  he  was  trying 
to  get  at."  He  entered  into  their  employments  with  a  cheery, 
"Come,  boys,  tell  me  all  about  it,"  and  by  his  yearning  for  ex- 
perience and  affection  drew  the  thought  out  of  their  minds  and  the 
love  out  of  their  hearts.  For  all  he  would  do  many  services. 
One  winter  in  New  York  he  drove  an  omnibus,  taking  the  place 
of  a  sick  driver  in  the  hospital.  It  was  his  custom  in  Washington 
to  present  the  street-car  drivers  with  warm  gloves  for  their  winter 
work.  He  was  friendly  with  all  whom  he  met.  Here  in  a 
poem  is  "  a  glimpse  through  an  interstice  caught  " 

Of  a  crowd  of  workmen  and  drivers  in  a  bar-room  around  the 

stove  late  of  a  winter  night,  and  I  unremark'd  seated  in  a 

corner, 
Of  a  youth  who  loves  me  and  whom  I  love,  silently  approaching 

and  seating  himself  near,  that  he  may  hold  me  by  the  hand, 
A  Jo.ng  while  amid  the  noises  of  coming  and  going,  of  drinking 

and  oath  and  smutty  jest, 


xlii  SELECTIONS  FROM   WALT   WHITMAN 

There  we  two,  content,  happy  in  being  together,  speaking  little, 
perhaps  not  a  word. 

In  the  New  York  days  all  the  literary  men  knew  and  liked  him. 
A  deeply  felt  attachment  grew  up  with  Emerson,  Thoreau,  and 
Alcott.  Stedman,  John  Swinton,  and  Charles  Eldridge  were  close 
friends.  Bryant  would  accompany  him  on  long  walks.  At 
Washington  he  was  a  familiar  figure.  Lincoln  was  at  once  im- 
pressed by  his  presence,  and  thought  that  here,  at  length,  was  a 
genuine  man.  Garfield  always  welcomed  him  with  a  salute  and 
the  quotation,  "  After  all  not  to  create  only."  He  formed  life- 
long friendships  with  William  D.  O'Connor  and  John  Burroughs, 
who  became  his  stanchest  defenders.  Long,  lonely  days  followed 
upon  his  paralysis  in  1873,  when  at  Camden,  sick  and  in  isolation, 
unrecognized  and  almost  neglected,  he  suffered  three  dark  years. 
After  several  months  of  residence  in  Camden,  he  wrote  pathetically 
to  Doyle:  "I  don't  know  a  soul  here, —  am  entirely  alone  — 
sometimes  sit  alone  and  think,  for  two  hours  on  a  stretch  —  have  not 
formed  a  single  acquaintance  here,  any  ways  intimate."  He  re- 
cords the  visit  of  Mr.  Ingram  from  Philadelphia:  "  He  came  over 
and  hunted  for  hours  through  the  hot  sun,  found  me  at  last  —  he 
evidently  thought  I  was  keeled  up  and  hard  up,  and  he  came  to 
offer  help  —  he  has  been  a  great  traveller,  is  English  by  birth  —  I 
found  him  good  company,  and  was  glad  to  see  him  —  he  has  been 
twice — so  you  see  there  are  good  souls  left."  But  in  1876  recog- 
nition came  from  England.  "  Those  blessed  gales  from  the  British 
Island  probably  (certainly)  saved  me,"  the  poet  confessed.  A 
letter  had  been  sent  to  the  English  press,  written  by  Robert 
Buchanan,  stating  the  poet's  needs;  and  a  hearty  response  followed 
from  hundreds  of  English  authors  who  promptly  purchased  his 
books  and  sent  emotional  cheer.  To  John  Addington  Symonds, 
from  his  youth  up,  Whitman  had  been  the  medium  of  a  regenerated 
life;  and  Symonds'  letters  to  his  "master"  offer  the  tribute  of  a 
disciple's  affection.  An  acquaintance  with  Tennyson  began  in 
1870,  and  a  correspondence  was  kept  up  between  them  till  Whit- 
man's death.  One  of  the  last  letters  written  by  Tennyson  was  a 
note  of  thanks  to  a  correspondent  in  America  who  had  sent  him 
notice  of  Whitman's  death.  Concerning  this  relationship  Whit- 
man wrote  in  1876,  "  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  Alfred  Tennyson 
sees  my  poems  ,•  .  .  .  but  I  think  be  sees  me,  and  nothing  could  have 
evidenced  more  courtesy  and  manliness  and  hospitality  than  his 
letters  to  me  have  shown  for  five  years."  Edward  Carpenter 


INTRODUCTION  xliii 

came  over  in  1877  for  t^le  express  purpose  of  meeting  his  great 
friend.  A  most  beautiful  and  intimate  comradeship  sprang  up  with 
Anne  Gilchrist,  who  had  written  in  1870  "A  Woman's  Estimate 
of  Walt  Whitman,"  the  most  courageous  and  appreciative  essay 
that  had  been  written  of  Whitman  up  to  that  time.  During  a 
visit  to  America  in  1876  she  came  to  know  Whitman  personally, 
and  he  fully  realized  the  ideal  she  had  formed  from  the  poems. 
She  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  He  brings  such  an  atmosphere  of  cordi- 
ality and  geniality  with  him  as  is  indescribable ' ' ;  and  warmer 
tributes  follow.  Whitman  said  on  his  part,  "  Among  the  perfect 
women  I  have  known  (and  it  has  been  my  remarkably  good 
fortune  to  have  had  the  very  best  for  mother,  sister,  and  friends),  I 
have  known  none  more  perfect  in  every  relation  than  my  dear, 
dear  friend,  Anne  Gilchrist."  And  at  her  death  he  wrote, 
"Nothing  now  remains  but  a  sweet  and  rich  memory, —  none 
more  beautiful  all  time,  all  life,  all  the  earth."  After  1876  the 
Calamus  battle  was  pretty  well  gained.  No  man  ever  had  more 
or  warmer  friends.  Bucke,  Harned,  Traubel,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Johnston,  Kennedy,  Ingersoll,  O'Reilly,  Donaldson,  and  many 
others  were  his  lovers  and  comrades.  Joaquin  Miller,  Joel 
Chandler  Harris,  Bret  Harte,  Mark  Twain,  Hamlin  Garland, 
and  all  the  Western  men  came  to  recognize  the  Camden  Sage  as 
their  fellow  and  leader.  The  press  became  more  lenient.  The 
Critic,  under  the  direction  of  Richard  Watson  Gilder,  gave  the 
poet  fair  treatment  and  honor.  From  all  parts  of  Europe  came 
tokens  of  love.  At  the  time  of  Whitman's  death,  in  1892,  his 
yearning  for  comrades  was  fully  gratified.  He  was  one  of  the 
Great  Companions. 

From  these  relationships  this  poet,  beyond  a  doubt,  derived  his 
greatest  strength  and  wisdom.  As  he  himself  was  a  new  type  of 
man, —  a  man  who  was  wholly  love,  who  could  not  harbor  hate 
or  jealousy, —  so  his  book  is  a  new  type  of  book, —  a  book  that  not 
only  has  love  as  its  ground  and  plan,  but  that  also  requires  the 
comprehension  of  love  from  the  reader. 

Thou  reader  throbbest  life  and  pride  and  love  the  same  as  I, 
Therefore  for  thee  the  following  chants. 


SELECTIONS    FROM    PROSE   WORKS 


SPECIMEN   DAYS 

NEW    THEMES    ENTERED    UPON 

i8j6,  '77. —  I  find  the  woods  in  mid-May  and  early 
June  my  best  places  for  composition.*  Seated  on  logs  or 
stumps  there,  or  resting  on  rails,  nearly  all  the  following 
memoranda  have  been  jotted  down.  Wherever  I  go,  in- 
deed, winter  or  summer,  city  or  country,  alone  at  home  or 
traveling,  I  must  take  notes  —  (the  ruling  passion  strong 
in  age  and  disablement,  and  even  the  approach  of — but 
I  must  not  say  it  yet.)  Then  underneath  the  following 
excerpta  —  crossing  the  t's  and  dotting  the  i's  of  certain 
moderate  movements  of  late  years  —  I  am  fain  to  fancy 
the  foundations  of  quite  a  lesson  learn'd.  After  you  have 
exhausted  what  there  is  in  business,  politics,  conviviality, 
love,  and  so  on  —  have  found  that  none  of  these  finally 
satisfy,  or  permanently  wear  —  what  remains?  Nature 
remains ;  to  bring  out  from  their  torpid  recesses,  the  affin- 
ities of  a  man  or  woman  with  the  open  air,  the  trees, 
fields,  the  changes  of  seasons  —  the  sun  by  day  and  the 
stars  of  heaven  by  night.  We  will  begin  from  these  con- 
victions. Literature  flies  so  high  and  is  so  hotly  spiced, 
that  our  notes  may  seem  hardly  more  than  breaths  of  com- 
mon air,  or  draughts  of  water  to  drink.  But  that  is  part 
of  our  lesson. 

Dear,    soothing,    healthy,    restoration-hours  —  after    three 
confining  years  of  paralysis  —  after  the  long  strain  of  the 
war,  and  its  wounds  and  death. 
ENTERING    A    LONG    FARM-LANE 

As  every  man  has  his  hobby-liking,  mine  is  for  a  real 
farm-lane  fenced  by  old  chestnut-rails  gray-green  with 

*  Without  apology  for  the  abrupt  change  of  field  and  atmosphere  ...  I 
restore  my  book  to  the  bracing  and  buoyant  equilibrium  of  concrete  outdoor  Nature, 
the  only  permanent  reliance  for  sanity  of  book  or  human  life. 
Who  knows,  ( I  have  it  in  my  fancy,  my  ambition, )  but  the  pages  now  en- 
suing may  carry  ray  of  sun,  or  smell  of  grass  or  corn,  or  call  of  bird,  or  gleam  of 
stars  by  night,  or  snow-flakes  falling  fresh  and  mystic,  to  denizen  of  heated  city 
house,  or  tired  workman  or  workwoman  ?  —  or  may-be  in  sick-room  or  prison  — 
to  serve  as  cooling  breeze,  or  Nature's  aroma,  to  some  fever' d  mouth  or  latent  pulse. 


4  SELECTIONS   FROM    WALT   WHITMAN 

dabs  of  moss  and  lichen,  copious  weeds  and  briers  grow- 
ing in  spots  athwart  the  heaps  of  stray-pick'd  stones  at  the 
fence  bases  —  irregular  paths  worn  between,  and  horse  and 
cow  tracks  —  all  characteristic  accompaniments  marking 
and  scenting  the  neighborhood  in  their  seasons  —  apple- 
tree  blossoms  in  forward  April  —  pigs,  poultry,  a  field  of 
August  buckwheat,  and  in  another  the  long  flapping  tassels 
of  maize  —  and  so  to  the  pond,  the  expansion  of  the  creek, 
the  secluded-beautiful,  with  young  and  old  trees,  and  such 
recesses  and  vistas. 
TO  THE  SPRING  AND  BROOK 

So,  still  sauntering  on,  to  the  spring  under  the  willows  — 
musical  as  soft  clinking  glasses  —  pouring  a  sizable  stream, 
thick  as  my  neck,  pure  and  clear,  out  from  its  vent  where 
the  bank  arches  over  like  a  great  brown  shaggy  eyebrow 
or  mouth-roof —  gurgling,  gurgling  ceaselessly  —  meaning, 
saying  something,  of  course  (if  one  could  only  translate  it) 
—  always  gurgling  there,  the  whole  year  through  —  never 
giving  out  —  oceans  of  mint,  blackberries  in  summer  — 
choice  of  light  and  shade — just  the  place  for  my  July 
sun-baths  and  water-baths  too  —  but  mainly  the  inimitable 
soft  sound-gurgles  of  it,  as  I  sit  there  hot  afternoons. 
How  they  and  all  grow  into  me,  day  after  day  —  every- 
thing in  keeping  —  the  wild,  just-palpable  perfume,  and 
the  dappled  leaf-shadows,  and  all  the  natural-medicinal, 
elemental-moral  influences  of  the  spot. 
Babble  on,  O  brook,  with  that  utterance  of  thine !  I 
too  will  express  what  I  have  gather'd  in  my  days  and  prog- 
ress, native,  subterranean,  past  —  and  now  thee.  Spin  and 
wind  thy  way  —  I  with  thee,  a  little  while,  at  any  rate. 
As  I  haunt  thee  so  often,  season  by  season,  thou  knowest, 
reckest  not  me,  (yet  why  be  so  certain  ?  who  can  tell  ?)  — 
but  I  will  learn  from  thee,  and  dwell  on  thee  —  receive, 
copy,  print  from  thee. 

SUNDOWN  PERFUME  —  QUAIL-NOTES  —  THE  HERMIT- 
THRUSH 

June  igth,  4.  to  6l/z  P.M. —  Sitting  alone  by  the  creek  — 
solitude  here,  but  the  scene  bright  and  vivid  enough  —  the 


SPECIMEN  DATS  5 

sun  shining,  and  quite  a  fresh  wind  blowing  (some  heavy 
showers  last  night,)  the  grass  and  trees  looking  their  best 

—  the   clare-obscure    of   different    greens,   shadows,   half- 
shadows,  and  the  dappling  glimpses  of  the  water,  through 
recesses  —  the  wild  flageolet-note  of  a  quail  near  by  —  the 
just-heard   fretting  of  some  hylas  down  there  in  the  pond 

—  crows  cawing  in  the  distance  —  a  drove  of  young  hogs 
rooting  in  soft  ground  near  the  oak  under  which  I  sit  — 
some  come  sniffing  near  me,  and  then  scamper  away,  with 
grunts.      And  still  the  clear  notes  of  the  quail  —  the  quiver 
of  leaf-shadows  over  the  paper  as   I  write  —  the  sky  aloft, 
with  white  clouds,  and  the  sun  well  declining  to  the  west 

—  the  swift  darting  of  many  sand-swallows   coming  and 
going,  their  holes  in  a  neighboring  marl-bank  —  the  odor 
of  the   cedar  and   oak,  so   palpable,  as  evening  approaches 

—  perfume,  color,  the  bronze-and-gold    of  nearly  ripen'd 
wheat  —  clover-fields,     with     honey-scent  —  the     well-up 
maize,  with  long  and  rustling  leaves  —  the  great  patches 
of  thriving   potatoes,  dusky   green,  fleck'd   all   over   with 
white  blossoms  —  the  old,  warty,  venerable  oak  above  me 

—  and  ever,  mix'd  with  the  dual  notes  of  the   quail,  the 
soughing  of  the  wind  through  some  near-by  pines. 

As  I  rise  for  return,  I  linger  long  to  a  delicious  song- 
epilogue  (is  it  the  hermit-thrush  ?)  from  some  bushy  recess 
off  there  in  the  swamp,  repeated  leisurely  and  pensively 
over  and  over  again.  This,  to  the  circle-gambols  of  the 
swallows  flying  by  dozens  in  concentric  rings  in  the  last 
rays  of  sunset,  like  flashes  of  some  airy  wheel. 
A  JULY  AFTERNOON  BY  THE  POND 

The  fervent  heat,  but  so  much  more  endurable  in  this 
pure  air  —  the  white  and  pink  pond-blossoms,  with  great 
heart-shaped  leaves ;  the  glassy  waters  of  the  creek,  the 
banks,  with  dense  bushery,  and  the  picturesque  beeches 
and  shade  and  turf;  the  tremulous,  reedy  call  of  some  bird 
from  recesses,  breaking  the  warm,  indolent,  half-voluptu- 
ous silence ;  an  occasional  wasp,  hornet,  honey-bee  or 
bumble  (they  hover  near  my  hands  or  face,  yet  annoy  me 
not,  nor  I  them,  as  they  appear  to  examine,  find  nothing, 


